How a family of five simplified years of investing into just two funds and why we’re staying the course.
A quick note before we dive in: this post is not financial advice. Everything here reflects the personal experience and investment decisions of our own family. All images and content were created exclusively by A Compact Life. As I’ve said from day one always do your own research, and consult a financial professional if needed.
With that said, let’s get to it.
There’s something deeply satisfying about simplicity not the kind handed to you, but the kind you earn through years of reading, experimenting, and second-guessing. That’s what happened when we committed to our 90/10 portfolio: 90% in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral Shares (VTSAX) and 10% in Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Admiral Shares (VBTLX).
Getting here wasn’t overnight. It was the result of a long financial education, the gradual consolidation of scattered accounts, and the steady influence of a few voices who changed how we think about money.
Where It All Began
Back in 2015, I came across a Forbes article on my commute about a couple who’d retired in their 30s to travel the world. In it was a reference to Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin. I downloaded it before I got off the train. That book reframed everything: work isn’t just a paycheck, it’s hours of your life you’re trading. Every dollar saved became a proxy for time, your most irreplaceable resource.
From there, we found JL Collins and his Stock Series, still the most readable breakdown of long-term investing on the internet. His book, The Simple Path to Wealth, became our investment bible. Its message was clear: the complexity of the financial industry is largely manufactured, actively managed funds mostly underperform the market over time, and the path to financial independence runs through low-cost, broad-based index funds.
We originally ran a more complex setup, ETFs across Roth IRAs, a brokerage account, an HSA, all with slightly different allocations. In our early post Vanguard Through And Through, we were already planning to consolidate everything into VTSAX and VBTLX Admiral Shares. We’ve done it. We haven’t looked back.
The Two Funds
VTSAX is a stake in the entire US economy. It tracks the CRSP US Total Market Index and holds over 3,500 stocks from Apple and Microsoft down to small-cap companies most people have never heard of. At an expense ratio of 0.04%, you’re paying roughly $4 per year on every $10,000 invested. The minimum to open Admiral Shares is $3,000.
VBTLX’s job is different. It holds thousands of investment-grade bonds, treasuries, agency debt, corporate bonds, and mortgage-backed securities. It won’t grow your wealth the way equities do, but when markets fall hard, bonds tend to hold steady. That cushion keeps you rational when everything else is screaming at you to sell.
Twenty Years of Growth
The chart below shows what a hypothetical $10,000 invested in 2005 would have looked like across three scenarios: pure VTSAX, pure VBTLX, and our 90/10 blend. Note the 2008 crash and what happened to investors who stayed in.
Why 90/10?
The classic formulas hover around 80/20 or 60/40. Our original approach was 80/20. But when we looked at our time horizon, income stability, and risk tolerance, 90/10 fit better.
We are decades away from needing to draw down this portfolio. Over very long time horizons, bonds add meaningfully less expected value than equities. Every percentage point shifted from VTSAX to VBTLX slightly reduces long-term accumulation potential. So why hold bonds at all?
The most dangerous thing for a long-term investor isn’t the market going down it’s the investor panicking and selling when it does.
The 10% in VBTLX is our psychological anchor. When the market drops 30-40%, that cushion keeps the portfolio from collapsing to a number that makes us want to run. And staying invested not timing the market, not reacting to headlines is the single most important variable in long-term wealth building.
The Current Conversation: JL Collins and Going International
If you follow the personal finance world, you know that JL Collins – the man most associated with “VTSAX and chill” – made some quiet changes to his portfolio in early 2026. In his post JL Goes International, and to ETFs… Oh My!, he revealed he’d shifted his IRA accounts into VT (Vanguard’s Total World Stock ETF), citing concerns about US economic policy, a weaker dollar, and the fact that international markets dramatically outperformed the US in 2025 – with much of Europe returning over 30% while the S&P 500 returned 16.4%.
He was careful to frame it as modest. His core message didn’t change: low costs, broad diversification, hold forever.
We’re staying in VTSAX and VBTLX. Here’s why.
Our holdings are in tax-advantaged accounts. Moving to a world fund would require us to analyze tax consequences carefully. More importantly, we know ourselves. Trying to respond to macro shifts – even when they seem obvious – is a different game than the one we committed to. The person who shifted away from US equities in 2010 because emerging markets “looked stronger” missed one of the most extraordinary bull runs in history.
We’re not saying Collins is wrong. We’re saying that a plan you can actually stick to through good years and bad is more valuable than the theoretically optimal plan you’ll abandon the first time something scary happens.
Why Admiral Shares – Not ETFs?
Collins actually noted in his 2026 post that he switched from VTSAX to VTI while he was in his Vanguard account anyway — saving one basis point in the process (0.03% vs 0.04%). Fair enough. But for us, the mutual fund structure of VTSAX has practical advantages that make it the better fit.
VTSAX allows fully fractional contributions through automatic investments. Every dollar we deposit each month gets fully invested immediately. With ETFs, you’re generally buying whole shares, which means a portion of your contribution can sit as uninvested cash. Over decades, that drag adds up. VTSAX also requires no timing contributions process at end-of-day NAV, automatically, with no bid-ask spread to worry about.
Set it and forget it. That’s the whole system.
The Full Picture
When we first designed our strategy, we were guided by the Pareto principle, 80% of results from 20% of actions. Strip away the unnecessary. Double down on what moves the needle. Our 90/10 portfolio in VTSAX and VBTLX is the fullest expression of that idea.
Two funds. One brokerage. Automatic monthly contributions. Annual check-in to see if the allocation has drifted. That’s it. No stock picking, no market timing, no earnings calls to follow. You with me?
We hold everything in Roth IRA accounts after-tax contributions that grow completely tax-free, with no taxes owed on dividends or capital gains at withdrawal. For a portfolio we expect to compound over decades, the structural advantage of this account type is enormous.
The world may keep changing. Markets will rise and fall. Policies will shift. And every few years, there will be a compelling argument for doing something different. JL Collins himself will tell you that the noise is constant and the signal is simple: acquire shares in low-cost, broad-based index funds, stay the course through the inevitable drops, and hold forever.
That’s what we’re doing. One boring month at a time.