How I Invest My Own Money in 2025

The ultimate goal is to build a system so dull you forget it exists because you're too busy living the life the money was supposed to buy you in the first place.

Not just compounding dollars, but compounding mental bandwidth, knowing I don't have to chase, tweak, or outwit the market every day.

And that, to me, is wealth.

Hello, friends.

This is Tyler Gardner, welcoming you to another episode of your Money Guide on the Side, where it is my job to simplify what seems complex, add nuance to what seems simple, and learn from and alongside some of the brightest minds in money, finance, and investing.

So let's get started and get you one step closer to where you need to be.

I don't know if you all know about this one, but there's a strange genre of YouTube video called What's In My Bag.

where people empty their backpacks or purses and show their chapstick collection like it's a state secret.

Not gonna lie, I always wait to see what's in their bag.

This episode is kind of like that, except instead of my bag, it's all my financial accounts.

For some reason, no matter how theoretically sound we can be on these shows, people still tend to prefer seeing how others actually invest.

So, what's in my financial bag?

Well, to start, instead of chapstick, it's index funds and money markets, which to be fair, are about as sexy as chapstick, and not even the fun-flavored kind.

We're talking the plain, unscented stick you lose in your winter coat pocket and find three years later, still somehow usable.

But unlike most YouTubers, I promise there's no ring light or mystery pouch unless you count the mystery of why Vanguard's website still looks like it was coded on Netscape.

Today, I'm walking you through exactly how I invest my money right now in 2025 and why.

As a standard precursor, no, this is not advice.

No, I no longer have financial licenses anyway.

And no, I'm not saying what's right for me is right for you.

But I'll do my best to clarify how I think about each account and each investment so you can use this episode as a mirror the next time you're looking to put on some financial chapstick.

We will explore the contents of my Roth IRA, my taxable brokerage, my SEP IRA, and even my glorified piggy bank, the wonderful world of money markets.

I'm not here to sell you any of these funds, nor do I get paid to promote them.

These are just the funds I currently use and why they work for me in different types of accounts.

And to keep the show from becoming about as boring as a Vermont town meeting on whether or not we should place a stop sign at the one intersection in town, I will share how I went from trying to be the next Peter Lynch for stockpicking to realize I'd rather have my mental bandwidth back, why I sometimes hoard cash like a squirrel on Adderall, and why even index fund investors, yes, even us smug just buy the S ⁇ P 500 and chill people,

can and do still fall into the trap of trying to outsmart the market even via index funds.

For the record, those Vermont town meetings usually last three hours, include two fistfights, and still end with no stop sign.

But before we dive in this week, I do want to ask for one quick favor from you.

If you find this helpful and have a few moments to help make this show even better, please fill out the survey linked in the show notes.

It takes about 97 seconds and it helps me figure out who you are, what you want, and how I can make this show a little more useful than a variable annuity prospectus written by lawyers who were clearly paid by the comma, or possibly by the semicolon, judging by how unhinged some of those sentences are.

Alright, so let's unzip my backpack and see what's inside.

Spoiler, not a MacBook Air or a travel-sized bottle of dry bar shampoo.

It's just a depressing amount of ETFs that have all the sex appeal of a muni bond.

So here we go, section one, my Roth IRA.

There's a story that you might have heard about Peter Thiel, you know, PayPal guy, hobbit-like recluse, professional bond villain impersonator, turning his Roth IRA into a $5 billion tax-free money palace.

How?

By stuffing early shares of PayPal into it when they were worth about the price of a Dunkin' iced coffee.

Now, I can't do that.

You can't do that unless you happen to have a billion-dollar startup idea hiding in your sock drawer, in which case, shoot me an email.

Would love to connect.

But here's the real and incredibly important lesson from Teal's Roth story.

This account, or the Roth 401k, is your most tax-efficient sandbox.

Once the money's in, it grows forever tax-free and can be passed down to future generations 100% tax-free.

That means if you're ever going to swing for the fences, not saying you should, but if you do, this is the place to do it.

Seriously, if you're the type of person who just can't help buying the latest IPO or chasing that can't lose hot tip from your brother-in-law who once met a guy at a golf course, why on earth would you not put it in your Roth IRA?

If If it hits, you want that hit to be 100% yours.

And as of now, this is the only place where you can make that happen.

That's why I go aggressive in my Roth IRA.

It's 100% growth funds.

No bonds, no cash, no safe funds.

If this thing goes up 10x, every dime is mine, and Uncle Sam gets nothing.

Which is probably the only time in your life you'll be able to say that without the IRS sending you a love letter in triplicate.

What this looks like in practice?

For me, it's pretty simple.

I invest in a Vanguard Growth Index, VIGAX.

You could also use the ETF version, VUG, slightly cheaper.

Both of these have exposure to big US growth companies, Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, etc.

Basically, the stock market equivalent of a frat party where everyone's wearing Patagonia vests and arguing over whose Tesla charges the fastest.

Or in the Roth, you could also invest in a Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, VTSAX, or the ETF version, VTI.

Both still aggressive, still 100% equities, but with a slightly broader base.

This is like going to the same frat party, but realizing they've also invited your weird uncle's HVAC business.

And for the bold, you could even go with something like Vanguard Small Cap Growth, VSGAX.

These are tiny companies.

reflective of big swings.

Some of them will soar, most of them will sink, and a few will quietly disappear like your middle school MySpace page.

Good time to pause and remember this is about as aggressive as I'd like to be.

You might find this absurdly boring and conservative, even with 100% inequities.

And if you're one of those people who insists on deconstructing the funds themselves, you don't need a PhD.

Just Google VIGAX top holdings.

See what percentage of different companies they're holding and boom, there's your investing script.

None of these funds are doing anything fancy.

They're just slightly more expensive shopping carts filled with Apple and Microsoft.

The key with the Roth is time horizon.

My Roth IRA will be the single last account I'll ever crack open, and that's hopefully decades away.

So why would I sit on government bonds or dividend stocks in this account?

That would be like saving your best bottle of wine for years and then using it to marinate chicken nuggets.

So here's the point: summation, Roth equals long time horizon.

Roth equals tax-free growth.

Roth equals the account where you can justify being the most aggressive.

That might be the one piece of objective guidance I ever give because I can't see a serious challenge to this.

Unless, of course, it's the only account you have and you plan to tap it earlier.

In which case, well, don't.

What's in my bag number two?

The taxable brokerage account, aka my liquid nest, and my mental bandwidth.

If the Roth IRA is my Peter Thiel playground, my taxable brokerage account is my Vermont woodshed.

It's where I keep everything accessible and under one roof.

The firewood, the snowshoes, the money market funds.

It's not glamorous, but it's really practical for me.

Nobody brags about this woodshed, but everyone notices when you don't have one.

And unlike a high-yield savings account, it doesn't require me to memorize yet another password that sounds like the Wi-Fi code from a Soviet bunker.

My brokerage money market funds pay the same rates and they sit right next to my other investments.

One login, one house, less clutter.

Think of it as the financial equivalent of buying all your groceries at the same store instead of driving 40 minutes to save 19 cents on peanut butter.

A quick sidebar on why I keep more cash now.

And this is the part I don't hear enough money people talking about.

As I've gotten older, I've started keeping more money on hand in cash-like accounts.

Not because I'm scared of the market, not because I've lost faith in index funds, and certainly not because I've been Dave Ramsey'd into thinking I need a 49-month emergency fund in case every single appliance, relative, and asteroid hits the ground on the same day.

No, it's because I finally admitted something to myself about myself.

I'm a world-class hoarder and a lousy spender.

For years, my instinct was to invest every extra dollar immediately.

Mark it down, shovel more in.

Market up, shovel even more in.

Like some deranged raccoon stockpiling shiny things, I couldn't stop.

It worked for building wealth, sure.

But meanwhile, life was quietly drifting by.

My hips were loudly breaking down, and vacations and dinners with friends were getting postponed indefinitely.

I basically turned later into a religion, and I was a very devout parishioner.

Because here's what happens.

Every time I invest, I consider that money gone for current tie-tai and only available to some mythical future tie-tai.

And I'm starting to suspect future tie-tai doesn't exist.

Or if he does, he's currently wearing the same five-year-old target t-shirt as me.

So now I use my money market fund as a kind of psychological shock collar.

It stares back at me from my taxable account and says, hey genius, book the trip.

Or maybe allow yourself to fly first class once.

Or maybe replace the couch that the last owners of your house left you five years ago.

You know, the one currently being held together with duct tape like it's a NASA re-entry vehicle.

What this looks like in practice.

My core holdings are ultra-efficient ETFs like Vanguard Total Stock Market or Vanguard SP 500.

That's VTI or VOO, respectively.

These are basically investing's version of oatmeal.

Boring, reliable, and incredibly good for you.

That is minus the sugar.

Nobody Instagrams their oatmeal, but you'd be worse off, way worse off, without it.

Cash Bucket is now up to 15% of my assets.

This is a brokerage-linked money market funds like VMFXX for Vanguard or FPRXX for Fidelity.

Think of these as grandma's cookie jar.

Safe, liquid, that sounds odd, and somehow always right where you need them.

Except, this jar actually pays you back, instead of leaving you with crumbs and type 2 diabetes.

Optional play in a taxable brokerage would be a small tilt toward tax-efficient international funds like Vanguard's VXUS.

This is the broccoli of investing.

You know you should have some, you don't really want to, and when you finally do, it rewards you with dividends that are about as tax-friendly as a parking ticket.

But if you want a little international exposure, as long as it's a tax-efficient index fund, great.

Why this account matters for me.

Unlike the Roth IRA, where I'm swinging for the fences, my taxable brokerage is about two things.

One, efficiency.

Keep taxes and costs down.

Those are non-negotiables.

But two, and this is something again that's newer for me, is the psychological component.

I want to give myself visible permission to spend money.

Because the whole purpose of investing isn't to win the how many zeros game.

It's to buy back time, create flexibility, and establish even more memories.

And for me right now, keeping more in cash-like funds is my way of saying, Tyler, don't forget to actually live.

Or put another way, I don't want my net worth graph to look amazing while my calendar looks like an empty Vermont field in February.

What's in my bag number three, pre-tax accounts, aka the tax bracket tamer when you need it.

If the Roth IRA is where I dream big, my taxable brokerage is where I practice delayed, read, failed, gratification, then my pre-tax accounts are where I do the sensible, boring, and deeply satisfying work of lowering my current tax bill.

For years, when I was a teacher in my 20s, this type of account barely mattered to me.

My tax bracket was already low, my paycheck modest, and Uncle Sam and I weren't really in conflict, so a lot of the money went to the Roth.

Now, however, as a business owner with real revenue, I suddenly care a lot more about lowering my current tax bill.

Nothing makes you patriotic like realizing the IRS is taking enough money to fund a small high school marching band every single year.

Not to mention my lovely home state of Vermont.

So I opened a SEP IRA, a simplified employee pension, and I did it through my same brokerage firm.

It took about 10 minutes, which is roughly the same time it takes me to decide between mild and medium salsa at the grocery store.

And every dollar I tuck in here lowers my taxable income today.

When you're in a higher bracket, that immediate relief feels less like a technicality and more like being wrapped in a wool blanket inside of which you get to feel smug, self-satisfied, and almost convinced you know what you're doing.

And yes, in this SEP, I am still 100% equities.

I can't touch these funds until I'm 59 and a half, and I'm 42 now.

So this is basically my dear future Tyler letter in account form.

Bonds don't belong here, dividend plays don't belong here, real estate doesn't belong here.

Again, that's just for me with about a 20-year timeline till I'd want to touch this.

With this much runway, I want maximum growth.

Plus, the account is psychologically locked.

When the market dips, I don't feel temptation because it's behind a vault door labeled Future Tyler's Problem.

Here are some quick perks of the SEP IRA.

First, as I mentioned, ridiculously simple to set up.

Very high contribution limits.

You can put in up to 25% of your the employee's compensation or $70,000, whichever is less.

That's an actual grown-up number, not the $7,000 traditional IRA limit, which feels like financial training wheels.

If you're self-employed, you can literally design your pay backward to maximize contributions.

Because nothing says entrepreneurial freedom quite like writing your own paycheck in pencil.

And it allows for flexible contributions.

Some years are going to be more lean and some years are going to be more flush.

With a SEP, you can contribute a lot one year and very little the next.

It's basically the buffet of retirement accounts.

Pile it on when you can, skip dessert when you can't.

Also, the tax deduction.

Every dollar you put in reduces your taxable income for this current year.

So if you're in a high tax bracket, which I am, it's the financial equivalent of discovering your neighbor has already chopped the wood.

It's still cold out, but somehow you're instantly warmer.

Note, there is an employee rule that if you have employees, you have to contribute the same percentage for them as you do for yourself.

You can't give yourself 25% and hand out granola bars to the rest.

Luckily for me, I don't have employees, which is great for my SEP contributions and even better for my introverted tendencies.

What I actually invest in.

My strategy here is straightforward.

When the business does well, I shovel a big slice into the SEP.

That way, I dodge taxes today and let future Tyler deal with the eventual withdrawal strategy.

Meanwhile, if I need liquidity, my taxable brokerage covers it.

It's balance.

Live today, don't get walloped tomorrow.

In the SEP, I keep it absurdly boring.

Are you noticing a trend?

Fidelity's 500 Index Fund FXAIX.

It's low cost, tax deferred, and tracks the S ⁇ P 500.

Nothing fancy, no bells and whistles.

FXAIX is the beige Toyota Corolla of investing.

It won't impress anyone at the dinner table, but it will get you where you're going on time for decades.

Item number four that is in my financial accounts.

This is more of a concept and it comes from a listener who wanted me to briefly explore the idea of those who try to beat the market with index funds.

Let me explain.

Here's my personal confession.

For all my sermons about keeping things simple, I too have fallen into a very modern and underexplored trap, trying to beat the market with the market.

What do I mean?

I mean tilting my index funds towards whatever preference du jour my inner 25 year old stock picker whispers in my ear on that day.

Shouldn't you add a little small cap value tilt?

Historically they outperform.

Oop, don't forget international.

The US cannot dominate forever.

Tech is eating this world.

Maybe load up a bit more.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, come on, it'll make you look cool at dinner parties you don't even go to.

And before you know it, I've got four or five ETFs doing the work that one perfectly adequate total market fund could do.

It's still stock picking, just in khakis instead of skinny jeans.

You're basically saying this corner of the market will do better than that one.

And I'm smart enough to know which.

It is stock picking in an unconvincing Halloween ghost costume.

And yes, the good news about tilting portfolios?

60% of the time, it works every time.

The much-hype small cap premium?

Ah, that's been missing in action for more than a decade.

International versus US?

Well, one might win for a while, and then hands the baton back like a couple of exhausted marathoners.

Tech?

Fantastic.

Until it's not.

Until it's 2001, and you're explaining to your spouse why half your net worth evaporated faster than a pets.com commercial.

I need you to hear this part.

Every tilt has its season of glory, but they also have long winters of underperformance.

And the more you slice things up, the more likely you are to second-guess yourself, which means you're right back on the mental hamster wheel you swore you'd escaped when you switched to index funds in the first place.

So what's the point?

This isn't to say tilting is bad.

It's doable, fine, sometimes even fun, like sprinkling hot sauce on a perfectly good meal.

But the real question becomes, does it actually improve your outcome or just give you the illusion of control?

For me, the lesson has been this.

The true victory of index funds is not squeezing out another 0.5% by betting on small cap or international.

The victory is buying back your mental bandwidth, not checking charts, not wondering if you guessed right, not carrying around the burden of prediction like it's a second mortgage.

I haven't tracked my performance against a benchmark in five years since I did this professionally, and I can't tell you how liberating that is.

Investing stopped feeling like a performance review and started feeling like, well, long-term investing.

So my own bag unzipped.

Here's where I've landed at least as of 2025.

In the Roth IRA, I've stuffed it with aggressive growth funds.

In the taxable brokerage, my checkings account, overachieving cousin, cash in money markets for liquidity, VTI and VXUS for growth, and the occasional cap gains harvest when life outside these woods comes calling.

In my pre-tax SEP RA, boring S ⁇ P 500 index fund, tax deduction today, and a love letter to future 59.5-year-old me, who will hopefully still be wise enough to wear flannel.

And cash in money markets.

Not, again, not because I'm scared, but because I finally accept that money is meant to be used.

I've spent decades hoarding.

It has worked.

Now the pile stares at me like a Labrador waiting for a walk, reminding me to actually go outside and do something.

And of course, the final irony.

I keep all this cash so I can go do something while also being the sort of raging introvert who never actually leaves the house because I found my calling producing content for all of you while sitting in the woods of Vermont surrounded by two hounds who care very deeply about one thing, whether or not dinner is late.

The weaknesses of my approach are obvious.

I tilt sometimes, thinking I'm clever with small cap or international, but that's not mastery, especially since I never actually track whether I won in any given year.

It's like bragging about winning at Scrabble without ever adding up the score.

The real mastery is knowing that simplicity is the point.

Index funds aren't just efficient, they're merciful.

They hand you back your time, your sleep, and your weekends.

They let you be boring in a world obsessed with being interesting.

And that, to me, is wealth.

Not just compounding dollars, but compounding mental bandwidth.

Knowing I don't have to chase, tweak, or outwit the market every day.

I just have to set the system, fund the system, and then get on with the deeply difficult business of deciding what's for dinner.

So, if you take anything from my own portfolio, let it be this.

The goal isn't just to get rich.

Sure, that's a goal, but it's not the ultimate goal.

The ultimate goal is to build a system so dull you forget it exists because you're too busy living the life the money was supposed to buy you in the first place.

And hey, before you go, if you found this breakdown even remotely helpful, please fill out the quick survey in the show notes as it will help me learn more about who you are, what you want more of or less of, and how I can keep making this podcast actually useful to your life.

Consider it your fiduciary duty to my flannel-clad future episodes.

Or, at minimum, consider it your charitable donation to a man who spent the better part of 20 years trying to explain why boring is beautiful.

Thanks for tuning in to your Money Guide on the Side.

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Until next time, I'm Tyler Gardner, your money guide on the side, and I truly hope this episode got you one step closer to where you need to be.