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I’ve read lots of articles about asset allocation, and how and when to rebalance a portfolio. One facet I that haven’t seen discussed often is how do couples execute their asset allocation and rebalancing when they both have similar accounts. My wife and I each have Vanguard accounts with Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, a joint brokerage account, and online joint banking accounts.
We treat all our accounts as one. Our asset allocation has evolved over our working years, and during retirement. I began saving in my company’s 401k as soon as I could, and increased the amount each year. Because of child rearing and subsequent career growth, Vicky’s retirement savings really took off in the last twenty years of her career. She is almost entirely invested in a low-cost total market index fund, and it has grown significantly. I’ve typically done any family-level portfolio rebalancing in my IRA, mainly because I’m the one who tracks things. But there is no specific reason for that.
I’d be interested in knowing how other couples manage asset allocation and rebalancing when they each have accounts, and especially if they are of similar amounts.
It has been so helpful to have a summary of investments across accounts through the Schwab web interface. This includes investments at other brokerages. Other brokers, including Fidelity, offer similar tools, but I’m not as familiar with them.
As far as investing, I rank the accounts according to tax status and life expectancy, and make transactions according to that ranking when possible.
It surprises me that the brokerages do not do a better job providing interfaces for managing multiple accounts as one portfolio, but this topical discussion is showing me it is perhaps not as common as I assume it would be.
I have a Morningstar premium membership and they have a portfolio tracker which analyzes the portfolio to minutiae. I utilize it primarily for tracking the percentage of each asset class to let me know when an asset is increased enough that I need to rebalance. You can link all your accounts from all mutual fund companies. I manually update quarterly as because of general security concerns I don’t want all my retirement account numbers collated in one website.
I only rarely use it to analyze potential changes in my funds as I’m pretty much set on the funds that I will be utilizing the rest of my days here on this small blue marble.
Morningstar also provides invaluable articles on investing.
I keep an eye on all accounts as one portfolio for general planning. And I have each person’s accounts on their own
spreadsheet, to manage/match rebalancing.
As the opportunity arises, I’ve rolled over money to pair down the number of accounts (originally 13 the year before retirement, now down to 4) to simplify management.
In my excel workbook, I keep a notes page, to explain any changes I make, and document reasons for rebalancing differently between the two people.
Rick, I’ve always approached our finances (wife and I) as one. I started tracking all investments in an Excel spreadsheet, and lumped similar assets into asset allocation categories (with a column letting me know where the asset was located) for tracking. This has helped me know at one glance what is where, and why- such as growth assets in a Roth, and fixed income in a Traditional IRA. Not too complicated, and I update the spreadsheet a few times a year, or more often if I think a rebalance band may be getting triggered.