I have never published this before. I have ranked Vanguard funds. I have told you to buy index funds and chill. But I have never shown you what we actually own, in real numbers, with all the mess.
So here it is. Not a model portfolio. Not what I would build if I started over. The actual, imperfect, accumulated-over-fifteen-years thing that happened while my husband and I were both making decisions, sometimes together, often not, and occasionally looking up to realize we had built something kind of lopsided.
The headline: roughly $8 million across all accounts. We are a dual-income tech couple in our early 40s. We do not own a home. I know. Almost $8 million and we rent. In a high-cost city, the math on buying has not made sense for us until recently. We are looking now. If we buy, we will probably put 50% down, because that is how my brain works. I do not do leverage I can not sleep through.
We have been saving aggressively since our late twenties. Not because we had a plan. Because we were both children of immigrants who literally could not stop.
The Big, Ugly Truth
About 38% of our entire portfolio is concentrated in two mega-cap tech stocks. I know. I know. I literally tell you to buy index funds. This position exists because my husband accumulated company stock over a decade and we kept not selling it because it kept going up. That is not a strategy. That is inertia with a really good return.
The capital gains tax bill to unwind it would be enormous. Which is the classic excuse for staying overconcentrated. We are working on it. More on that below.
Overall Allocation
| Asset Class | Allocation |
|---|---|
| US stocks | 71% |
| International stocks | 8% |
| Bonds | 11% |
| Short-term / cash | 9% |
| Other | ~1% |
If you are thinking “that is aggressive for your early 40s,” yeah. A target-date fund for our age would be more like 60/40. We are running about 80/20. Some of that is intentional. We have a long runway and high risk tolerance. Most of it is that one concentrated position pulling the average.
Red = concentrated risk. Green = properly diversified. Other colors = mixed.
Account by Account, Honestly
The Concentrated Stock Position (~$3M, taxable)
Two mega-cap tech stocks. 100% domestic. Zero diversification. This is simultaneously the best-performing and most dangerous part of our portfolio. It could lose 40-50% in a real crash, and we would just sit there watching because the tax bill on selling is paralyzing.
We have looked into every way to unwind this without writing the IRS a massive check.
First thing we explored: equity exchange funds. The idea is you contribute your concentrated stock into a pool alongside other people doing the same thing, and you get back a share of a diversified basket without triggering a taxable sale. Sounds elegant. In practice: high fees, lock-up periods, and you are stuck in someone else’s fund structure forever. We passed.
The one we have spent the most time on is direct indexing. Here is how it works in plain English: instead of buying an S&P 500 index fund, you buy all 500 stocks individually. Then as some of them drop, you sell the losers to harvest tax losses. You use those paper losses to offset the capital gains from selling your concentrated position. Over several years, you gradually diversify out while keeping your tax bill manageable. You are basically manufacturing tax deductions to fund your exit.
We hate the fees (typically 0.2-0.4% annually). We hate that you end up with hundreds of individual stock positions that are a nightmare to transfer between brokers. We hate that once you start, you are kind of locked into the platform. But it is probably the least painful way to solve a problem we should have started solving five years ago.
This is our project for this year. Better late than never. But definitely late.
Our Diversified Accounts (~$3.1M combined)
These are the ones I am actually proud of. Between our retirement and non-retirement brokerage accounts, we run roughly a 49/21/25/5 split. About half US stocks, a fifth international, a quarter bonds, and a bit of alternatives. This is close to what I would recommend to anyone. Boring. Diversified. Sleepable. These accounts are proof that we know what we are doing. The concentrated position is proof that knowing and doing are different things.
The 401(k) (~$790K)
Mostly domestic stock with a 14% bond allocation. We both max it out every year. About $95K combined in annual retirement contributions across all our accounts. The fund choices are not perfect, because you work with what your employer offers. But the tax-deferred growth is worth it even with mediocre options.
My Individual Brokerage (~$730K)
About $200K of this is my stock-picking sandbox. I know I am not supposed to pick stocks. I know the data. I know index funds win over time. But my brain does not stop. It is always running scenarios, analyzing companies, reading earnings calls at midnight because apparently that is what I do for fun. If I do not give that energy somewhere to go, it leaks into the rest of our portfolio and I start making dumb moves with the money that actually matters.
So this is my playground. I win some, I lose some. I have had picks that tripled and picks that went to zero. The net result is that I roughly match the market, which means I would have been better off in an index fund, which I already knew before I started. But it keeps me humble. Every time I think I am clever, some random stock I was sure about drops 40% and reminds me that I am not. And honestly? That humility is worth more than the returns. It keeps me disciplined everywhere else.
The rest of this account is another tech stock position that accumulated from previous years. Yes. Another concentrated tech stock on top of the big one. We have a concentration problem. See the section above about direct indexing. We are working on it.
The Crypto (~$320K)
Mostly Solana. I bought it around $20. Sold a little when it hit $200. Now it is around $80 and I go back and forth between selling half and waiting for it to either go to the moon or go to zero.
This is the most irresponsible and yet most successful investment I have ever made. I already pulled out everything I put in, so what is left is pure house money. It could 10x or it could disappear. Either outcome would be fine, which is the only reason I can sleep holding it.
I would never tell anyone to do what I did. But I am not going to pretend I did not do it.
Cash (~$310K)
This is about two years of expenses. Yes, two years. Before you email me, I know the opportunity cost. I have calculated it. Multiple times.
Here is why we hold this much: we already have massive stock exposure through the concentrated position. Our equity allocation is way over target. Adding more risk on top of that does not make us more diversified, it makes us more leveraged to the same bet. The cash is the other end of the barbell. It is our dry powder if the market drops 40%, our down payment if we buy a house, and our “we can walk away from anything” fund.
My husband and I both grew up watching our parents have no cushion. Two years of cash is what lets us take risks everywhere else.
Is it optimal? No. Does it let us sleep? Yes. I have made my choice.
Treasury Bills (~$145K)
Mostly three-month T-bills. This is literally just a parking spot for cash that pays better than a savings account. I am not going to dress this up as a “strategic bond allocation.” It is not. It is cash that earns 4-5% instead of sitting in checking earning nothing. That is it.
529 College Savings (~$290K, two plans)
Enough to cover in-state tuition at a good public university for both kids. We are not trying to prepay for Harvard. If they get scholarships, great. If they want private school, they can fund the gap. I think that is a reasonable boundary. I also think my kids watching me set financial boundaries is more valuable than the money itself.
Roth IRA (~$120K)
Embarrassingly small relative to our net worth. We are income-limited for direct contributions and I did not start backdoor Roth conversions early enough. If I could go back in time and change one financial decision, it is this. Max the Roth from day one of your career. I am telling you this because I did not do it and I wish someone had grabbed me by the shoulders.
The Honest Scorecard
What we are doing right
- Savings rate north of 50% of gross income
- Maxing all tax-advantaged accounts ($95K/year combined)
- The diversified accounts are genuinely well-constructed
- 529s funded without overfunding
- Speculative positions sized so they can not hurt us
- We know exactly what our problems are (which is more than most people can say)
What we are doing wrong
- 38% concentrated in two stocks. This is the big one.
- Too much in taxable, not enough in Roth. We will never get those early years back.
- 71% US stock is a home-country bias. Should have more international.
- The portfolio looks like it was built by two people making independent decisions for 15 years, because it was.
What I Would Tell You If This Were Your Portfolio
There is this thing psychologists call Solomon’s Paradox — named after the guy who could solve everyone else’s problems but could not get his own life together. Turns out it is not just a biblical story. The University of Waterloo actually proved it: when people reason about someone else’s situation, they show more intellectual humility, more perspective-taking, more recognition of uncertainty. When they reason about their own, they get narrow, ego-driven, and defensive.
We are literally wiser about other people’s lives than our own.
I think about this every time I write for this site.
If you showed me these numbers and they were not mine, I would say: “You have done the hard part. You saved like maniacs for 15 years. Now stop accumulating and start optimizing. Sell the concentrated position over 3-5 years and eat the tax bill. Fund the Roth every year. Get international to 20-30%. And decide what the cash is actually for. If it is a house fund, fine. If it is anxiety, that is a different problem.”
See how clear that is? How obvious? I could write that prescription in my sleep for someone else’s portfolio. For my own, I have been staring at that concentrated position for three years, calculating the tax bill, opening the sell screen, and closing it again. Every single time.
That is Solomon’s Paradox in action. And that is why I am telling you this. Not to brag, not for sympathy — but because every finance article pretends people make rational decisions with money, and we absolutely do not. Even the people who write the articles.
The gap between knowing and doing is where the interesting stuff lives. And honestly? That gap is what keeps me writing. Because if I had it all figured out, I would have nothing left to say.
Related Tools
- why we hold Wellington
- Net Worth Percentile Calculator — See where you stand
- Income Percentile Calculator — How your earnings compare
- Retirement Calculator — When can you actually retire?
- Best Vanguard Funds — The boring funds we actually hold
- Best Fidelity Funds — More of what we own