I’ve been on an HSA+HDHP for a couple of years now and only realized recently the interest earned from investing HSA money is also tax free, so I want to start investing a part of my savings and see how it goes. I have 2 options, Betterment or Mutual Funds. I figured I’d try the latter to avoid fees, but I’m not sure which funds to choose. My HSA currently provides 30 fund options.

I see people mentioning Vanguard a lot so I spread out my initial investment into 25% chunks across 4 different Vanguard funds. How did I choose them? Well I literally just looked at the performance graphs and selected the ones that historically went up steadily without major dips. As a total noob, how can I improve my choices? Is there a simple way to decide without having to dive deep into the stock market?

  • thessnake03@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 months ago

    A total market fund, or S&p 500 fund would be a good start. Pick something with a low percentage fee

    • n0m4n@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      2 months ago

      Decimal fractions of a percent are low fee. Vanguard is mostly, if not completely, low fee.

    • edric@lemm.eeOPEnglish
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      2 months ago

      Thanks! Noob question - what is a “low percentage fee” in this context?

      • thessnake03@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        2 months ago

        It’s the fee the fund manager charges. Looking at mine, they call them expense ratios. Big broad stuff like S&p and total market is typically low fee <1%. But something that tracks a specific market sector, or a really active fund could charge >5%

    • jelloeater - Ops Mgr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      100 percent this. Anything SP backed is gonna be safe. Unless you can do a CD, some have good rates of like 4-5 percent. T-bills tend to be too low yield for me tho.