Investing in the stock market is complicated. There are lots of things to consider, including diversification, asset allocation, dividends, company stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, expense ratios, earnings reports, candlestick charts, and so on. I’ve probably spent hours trying to read up on all that stuff, but decided it ultimately wasn’t the best use of my time. I’ve decided to take the lazy, smart investor approach.

VTTSX is the only ticker I invest in. It’s the Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 Fund, a mix of Vanguard’s own index funds. As the name suggests, it’s for people my age (early 20s) who are planning to retire at around 2060.

Some highlights:

1. Automatically rebalances the proportion of stocks vs bonds as I get older
2. Highly diversified with a mix of US and international stocks and bonds
3. Part of my Roth IRA with Vanguard, so I don’t have to worry about taxes
4. There are no trading fees since it’s with Vanguard

All that for a tiny expense ratio of 0.16%. That’s less than $2 per year per $1000 invested. Turns out this is the weighted average of the expense ratios of the individual funds, so this is no worse than doing it yourself, but it’s completely automatic.

Like this approach? Check out how much of your finances you can automate via Ramit Sethi. I’m reading Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek right now too.