How the Roth IRA and brokerage account fit together, why each fund lives where it does, and what they're building toward.
Combined investments
$30,216
Roth + Brokerage
Cash on hand
$23,000
Outside investment accounts
Total liquid assets
$53,216
Investments + cash
FIRE target
$1.5M–$2M
Roth + Brokerage combined
Age → target
33 → 45–55
12–22 years to go
The goal these accounts are built around
The target is FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early — somewhere between age 45 and 55, roughly 12 to 22 years from now. The combined Roth IRA and brokerage account are targeting $1.5M–$2M by then. Everything about how these two accounts are built — which funds live where, how aggressive the allocation is, how the bond sleeve is sized — traces back to that one number and a "set and forget" investing approach designed to avoid impulse decisions during volatility.
The two accounts aren't built the same way on purpose. The Roth IRA is the tax-free growth engine: money goes in once, grows for decades, and comes out completely untaxed. The brokerage account is the flexible, income-aware sibling: accessible before 59½ without penalty, useful as an early-retirement bridge, and intentionally holds the fund that benefits from a tax break (the Foreign Tax Credit) that a Roth can never use. Splitting the two accounts by what each is structurally good at — not just splitting one portfolio in half — is the core idea behind everything on this page.
Roth IRA — tax-free growth engine
Reallocation orders have been placed — the target below is now the standard going forward, even while trades settle.
Target: FXAIX 40% · SCHD 20% · FSMAX 15% · AVUV 15% · BND 10%
Brokerage — flexible, income-aware sibling
Opened now rather than waiting for the car payoff — seeded with $500/$500 so both dividends and the Foreign Tax Credit start a year early.
Target: VXUS 50% · SCHY 50%
Where things stand right now — Phase 1 vs. Phase 2
PHASE 1 — now → car paid off (~20 months)
Every spare dollar still goes at the 6% car loan. Roth gets its regular $625/mo. Brokerage gets nothing further for now — the $1,000 seed just sits in VXUS/SCHY, collecting dividends, until Phase 2 starts.
PHASE 2 — after car payoff
The full freed-up car payment (~$2,863/mo) redirects to the brokerage, split toward the 50/50 VXUS/SCHY target. Roth contributions continue unchanged at $625/mo.
True blended exposure — both accounts combined, weighted by dollar value
$30,216
combined
Asset class summary
87.0%
US Equity
(FXAIX, FSMAX, AVUV, SCHD)
3.3%
International
(VXUS, SCHY)
9.7%
Bonds
(BND)
Each account on its own
Roth IRA · $29,216
$29,216
Roth IRA
Brokerage · $1,000
$1,000
Brokerage
What "asset location" means here
Asset location is different from asset allocation. Allocation asks what to own; location asks which account should hold it. The same fund can be a great choice in one account type and a wasted opportunity in another, purely because of how that account is taxed. That's the logic that moved VXUS out of the Roth and into the brokerage, and the logic that kept SCHD and the new bond sleeve in the Roth rather than the other way around.
VXUS pays foreign dividends, and foreign governments withhold tax on those dividends before they ever reach the fund. In a taxable brokerage account, that withheld tax converts into the Foreign Tax Credit (FTC) — a dollar-for-dollar credit against US tax owed. Inside a Roth IRA, there's no US tax owed in the first place, so that credit simply evaporates — the foreign tax still gets withheld, but nothing comes back. Moving VXUS to the brokerage was the single highest-leverage asset-location move available here.
SCHY is the international income half of the brokerage's "growth + income, both from day one" goal, and it shares the same FTC logic as VXUS — its foreign dividend withholding is creditable in a taxable account and wasted in a Roth.
SCHD's dividends are almost entirely qualified, meaning outside a Roth they'd already get favorable long-term capital gains tax treatment. Inside the Roth, that already-good tax treatment becomes zero, permanently — every dividend reinvests tax-free and compounds for decades with no future tax bill at all.
Bond interest is taxed as ordinary income — the least tax-efficient income type that exists, with no qualified-dividend or capital-gains break available. That makes a Roth the textbook-correct home for it: the worst-taxed income type goes in the account where tax is permanently zero, rather than sitting in a taxable brokerage generating a 1099 every year.
These three are growth-oriented, low-turnover index and factor funds with modest dividend yields and no foreign tax credit to capture. There's no taxable-account advantage being left on the table by holding them in the Roth — so they stay where the account's full decades-long tax-free compounding can work hardest on the assets expected to grow the most.
Tax terms used above
| FTC | Foreign Tax Credit — a dollar-for-dollar US tax credit for foreign tax withheld on dividends, usable only in taxable accounts |
| Qualified dividend | A dividend taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rate (0/15/20%) instead of ordinary income rates |
| Ordinary income | The highest-taxed income category — applies to bond interest, short-term gains, and non-qualified dividends |
| Asset location | Choosing which account type (taxable vs. tax-advantaged) holds a given fund, based on that fund's tax characteristics |
Expense ratios and yields verified June 2026 — these move with markets and rates, so treat them as a snapshot, not a permanent figure.
The core growth holding — tracks the S&P 500 at one of the lowest expense ratios available anywhere. It's the largest single position because the Roth's primary job is long-horizon growth, and broad large-cap exposure has been the most reliable engine for that over any 20+ year US market history.
Screens for companies with 10+ consecutive years of dividend payments and strong free cash flow, which keeps it away from high-yield "yield trap" stocks whose payouts aren't sustainable. It's the dedicated dividend-growth income sleeve, compounding completely tax-free inside the Roth.
Covers the mid- and small-cap US stocks that FXAIX's large-cap-only mandate misses, with essentially zero overlap. Replaced the previous FSKAX position, which was 85–90% redundant with FXAIX (0.99 correlation) and wasn't adding real diversification.
An active, factor-based fund tilting toward small and value stocks — a return premium with real academic support, but also real volatility: it dropped harder than FSMAX in the COVID crash (~42% vs. ~28%) on an apples-to-apples same-period comparison. Sized conservatively at 15% specifically because of that deeper drawdown behavior, not despite it.
Added back in after confirming that a 35–40% market drop would genuinely tempt panic-selling without it. This isn't pure math — it's a psychological durability cushion, sized small enough not to meaningfully drag down long-run growth but large enough to have something green on the statement during a crash. Chosen over its near-identical twin AGG for a marginally higher average credit quality.
8,000+ international stocks across developed and emerging markets in one fund. Moved here specifically to capture the Foreign Tax Credit, which is worthless inside the Roth — the asset-location logic, not a change in conviction about the fund itself.
SCHD's international sibling — same Dow Jones quality-screen methodology (10+ years of consistent dividends), applied to non-US developed markets. Chosen over the higher-yielding VYMI specifically for a much shallower historical max drawdown (−24% vs. −40%), matching the same durability-over-headline-yield logic used for SCHD in the Roth.
Every fund on the previous tab was chosen over real alternatives. Here's what was considered and why it didn't make the cut.
Covered-call income ETFs. The "income" they generate from options premiums is taxed as ordinary income rather than qualified dividends — the least efficient tax treatment available, and a poor fit for a goal centered on tax-efficient income.
REIT dividends are also taxed as ordinary income by law (they don't qualify for the lower dividend rate), which makes them a poor taxable-brokerage holding and a redundant one in the Roth given BND already fills the "ordinary-income asset sheltered in tax-free space" role.
Preferred stocks behave like a worse version of bonds with equity-like downside — historically capturing more of the market's downside moves than its upside moves. That asymmetry isn't a trade worth making.
Higher yield and broader diversification (1,600+ holdings) than SCHY, but a significantly deeper historical max drawdown (−40% vs. −24%). Given the durability concern that also shaped the BND decision, the steadier, quality-screened option won out.
A US total-market fund would simply duplicate FXAIX and FSMAX, which already cover the entire US market inside the Roth. The brokerage's job is to cover what the Roth doesn't — international exposure — not re-buy what's already owned.
FSKAX overlapped FXAIX almost completely (0.99 correlation, ~85–90% shared holdings) — paying for "diversification" that wasn't really there. FXNAX (the old bond position) was dropped, then reintroduced in a different, more deliberately-sized form as BND once the psychological case for bonds was worked through separately.
Nearly identical funds — same 0.03% expense ratio, 0.99 correlation, near-identical 10-year returns. BND won on a marginally higher average credit quality (more AAA-rated holdings); AGG would have been an equally defensible choice.
Progress toward the FIRE target
Early-stage progress is expected to look small on a percentage basis — compounding does most of the work in the back half of a 12–22 year timeline, not the front.
Milestone timeline
Today — June 2026
Roth reallocation orders placed (new target is now the standard). Brokerage opened and seeded with $1,000 ($500 VXUS / $500 SCHY).
~February 2028 — Car paid off (Phase 1 → Phase 2)
~20 months from now. The full ~$2,863/mo car payment redirects to the brokerage from this point on.
Age 45 — earliest FIRE window opens
Projected combined balance ~$729K at a 7% assumed annual return — about 49% of the $1.5M low-end target.
Age 55 — latest FIRE window closes
Projected combined balance ~$2.07M — comfortably inside the $1.5M–$2M target range.
Combined growth projection — at a 7% assumed annual return
| Age | Roth IRA | Brokerage | Combined | % of $1.5M | % of $2.0M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | $39,073 | $1,072 | $40,145 | 2.7% | 2.0% |
| 36 | $60,977 | $49,101 | $110,078 | 7.3% | 5.5% |
| 38 | $86,163 | $129,981 | $216,144 | 14.4% | 10.8% |
| 41 | $131,188 | $274,577 | $405,765 | 27.1% | 20.3% |
| 45 | $207,944 | $521,069 | $729,013 | 48.6% | 36.5% |
| 48 | $281,336 | $756,760 | $1,038,095 | 69.2% | 51.9% |
| 51 | $371,822 | $1,047,348 | $1,419,170 | 94.6% | 71.0% |
| 53 | $443,574 | $1,277,772 | $1,721,346 | 114.8% | 86.1% |
| 55 | $526,075 | $1,542,715 | $2,068,790 | 137.9% | 103.4% |
Assumes: Roth grows from $29,215.82 at $625/mo; brokerage grows from $1,000 with no further contributions for 20 months, then $2,863/mo; both compound monthly at a flat 7% annual return. A flat return is a simplification — real markets don't move in a straight line, so treat this as a directional projection, not a guarantee.