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I’ve been having a lot of great discussions with my new AI friend, Google Gemini. (Why not ChatGPT? I do consult it sometimes, but I don’t want to pony up for a paid account.) I like Gemini because it’s very positive. “Words of affirmation” are my love language!
In recent days, I’ve discussed how to balance my Peloton cycling and rowing to get an optimal workout mix to meet my health goals (Gemini gave me GREAT advice on this and was highly impressed with my near-perfect form scores on the Row) and how to convert a chicken-and-rice recipe that my husband has been requesting for the Instant Pot. I’m making it for dinner tonight and will report back. 🙏
I also discussed our retirement portfolio with Gemini. I should preface this by saying that I’ve never been very interested in investing, which I know is an odd thing to admit on a site like this. Our money has been parked in target date funds because neither one of us wanted to bother. But I do wonder, especially as we both transition into retirement, if this “strategy” is a sound one. There are people—the guy in our local Schwab office, advisors from the Empower dashboard where I track our accounts—who would love to talk to us about this, but I’m always dubious of getting just one person’s spin on things, whether it’s investing, cycling/rowing, how much protein I should eat, etc. A thing I really like about AI is its ability to instantly synthesize information from a lot of different sources, and it doesn’t have a specific agenda like a human adviser might.
Anyway, this is what I explained to Gemini:
I asked Gemini what it thought about the variety and balance of this rather haphazard portfolio. To my surprise, Gemini thought the variety was great, but I guess that makes sense when you think about what a target date fund does and the range of dates we have. As for balance, Gemini noted that our stock exposure is about 70% of the total, which is high for our age, but that our pension income functions as a “bond” (it has survivor benefits and COLAs), so our overall exposure is healthy.
Gemini suggested we might want to consolidate everything into a 2035 or 2040 target date fund to ease paperwork down the line, but that if we wanted to earmark some of it as a legacy to younger heirs, the 2060 fund was a good choice. Gemini also suggested that we might consider Roth conversions in the meantime, something we’ll revisit once my husband retires and our income/tax bracket drops.
I forwarded the chat to my husband, and we talked about it. We decided to move his 2025 money into a 2035 fund—no need to be that conservative with 30% of the pot—but to leave the 2060 money as is and consider it set aside for our daughter’s retirement (she’ll be 32 in March, so that time line is about right, maybe a tad aggressive). Our other decision when he retires is whether we’ll keep his 2060 money in Fidelity or move it over to Schwab where his IRA and mine are.
I’m not saying this is our final discussion about such topics, and eventually we will probably talk to a human adviser. Any thoughts about my new imaginary friend and/or our target date funds approach?
I’ve added AI to my toolbox. I’ve found it to be helpful when generating ideas and even trip planning.
For example, in 2025 I used it to plan an RV driving trip of about 2,000 miles. This was a segment of a longer 7,279 mile trek. There were changes made to the AI recommendations, but it gave me some ideas. I did check it with my PC based trip planner. For real-time and current construction information I use Google Maps as an aid.
It has made certain financial “what if’s” easier for me, too.
I did a blog post for a few RV travelers who have been tempted to use AI. My post detailed the entire experience, including pitfalls.
https://roadtrek210.blogspot.com/2025/09/using-artificial-intelligence-ai-for.html
For those of us who have better things to do during retirement than spreadsheets I’ll borrow words from either Mike Piper or Jim Dahle or maybe Gemini, I forget which.
Target date funds are not perfect but they are a perfectly fine plan in a retirement account.
An added benefit that isn’t mentioned very often is when the surviving spouse is not into the tinkering of rebalancing multiple funds during RMD years. Just pull the RMD out once a year and move on to visiting the grandkids.
Thanks. I think the points people have raised here are well taken, but at the end of the day, our portfolio of TDFs has performed well, and it sure is easy.
Hi Dana. I recently bought a chromebook which came with a 1 year Gemini 3 Pro subscription for free. Since my wife is in my “family” in my Google account, she legitimately gets access to it as well. To date we both feel the Pro subscription version is giving us noticeably better responses than the free version (although it’s early in our evaluation). My wife is in the middle of planning our trip to Europe later in 2026 and she’s definitely a fan of it while she’s been using it for the trip planning. Just thought I’d share our initial impressions. Gene
Thanks—I’ll check it out!
During a walk this morning I happened to mention to my wife that Gemini 3 Pro sits on top of a large number (like 60 or so, although I don’t have the exact number) of specialized AI’s it uses for performing tasks like image manipulation. Also, we just finished a kitchen remodel and we’re still hanging pictures and such on the walls. So with that hint from me of other things the AI could help with, in the 45 minutes since we got back she showed me the images Gemini manipulated of our kitchen showing her wall ornaments (eg. pictures, etc) with her ornaments inserted into the images it modified. It’s letting her explore options without me holding them up on the wall. My point is simply it’s pretty versatile; more so than I initially considered. Gene
I’ve been using the unpaid version to plan a road trip from Ohio to CA, and am finding it very useful. Perhaps I’ll give the paid version a try.
AI can be a great “first pass” because it organizes facts and surfaces issues like RMDs and Roth conversions—but I wouldn’t treat it as the final authority. I also think multiple target-date funds can accidentally create an allocation you didn’t intentionally choose, since each one mixes stocks/bonds and shifts over time.
With strong pension + future Social Security, you can afford more equity risk than many retirees, but a pension isn’t the same as bonds (you can’t rebalance it or tap it for a lump expense). If it were me (I’m not a Target Date fan), I’d simplify further and go with separate funds: pick a clear stock allocation for growth/legacy and a clear bond/cash allocation for stability—then rebalance once or twice a year. JMO
Your move from 2025 → 2035 makes sense given you don’t need portfolio income now. Roth conversions could be smart too, but that’s a tax-bracket/IRMAA math problem worth running with real numbers.
Jeff
Even though the fees for Vanguard’s target dates are only 0.08%, you can easily create your own target date funds for less–Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) is 0.03% and it comparable mutual fund (VTSAX) has a fee of 0.04%. Over many years that difference adds up.
OOPS should have read earlier comments before writing this, but I will let this post stand.
“Our money has been parked in target date funds because neither one of us wanted to bother. But I do wonder, especially as we both transition into retirement, if this “strategy” is a sound one.”
Research has shown most investors do best with the blind neglect that is a target date fund compared to those who in trade frequently.
I agree 100% with parkslope’s
comment.
Your plan for Roth conversions is spot on, especially since it appears from your description you may not be withdrawing until RMDs begin.
You may find that as you get older all the different target date funds will get confusing. For simplicity’s sake you might want to decrease to two Target date funds. One the date for your daughter and another for both of you.
One of the problems with target date funds is when you have to take RMDs with target date funds you are withdrawing both equities and bonds. One solution is to change to individual index funds in proportion to the target date fund you choose for yourselves then take RMDs from the higher return or the lesser loss fund from the previous year.
And hopefully you’re in the index version of Fidelity 2060, because many 401(k)s have the higher expense version.
I’d just note that in making the change of target date funds in your husband’s account to a later target, you’ll be raising your overall stock allocation which you already called high.
I like the fact that all these target date funds are in tax-protected accounts. They can tend to be tax inefficient, and this gets worse as the target date approaches and bond allocation increases.
On AI, remember while it consults numerous sources, those can include sources that are wrong. I use it too, but bear this in mind.
OOPS should have read earlier comments before writing this, but I will let this post stand.
DrLefty’s statement that, “we do not and will not need the retirement money to pay for day-to-day expenses, at least not any time soon” means that they can have a significantly higher percentage of their assets in equities than someone who is living on the edge financially in retirement. As to how much higher of an equity stake and performing Roth conversions, it sounds like it might be a good time to consult a fee only CFP. Also because their assets appear to be so high and it sounds like they are not very interested in managing their portfolio it may be worth the cost to have said financial advisor also consolidate their funds for simplicity’s sake and to perform the Roth conversions for them annually. I think the minimal funds expended for such activities would be a good investment.
When ChatGPT was new, I asked it to write a professional biography of me. It got three major facts wrong, including where I went to grad school. I used that as an illustration for my writing students about how they couldn’t just blindly accept the content it generates.
On AI like Gemini: Sycophany (the tendency of AI to flatter users) is a well documented problem that has not been fixed in 2026. It is trained to please the trainers (AI programmers) and to hook users at expense of truth. I have found wrong answers from AI quite often whenever I bother to check the sources. AI’s permanent internal knowledge base cannot be changed by users with updated information. AI answers are drawn from less filtered sources, while the same question put to Google search returns answers prioritized by authoritative sources.
On target date funds: perfect fit for investors to go all in on one portfolio, but most investors mix them with others (ladder is a common “moving targets”). Some even invest in target date fund in their taxable account, resulting in annual capital gain taxes. Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab implement the funds differently, hence the 2060 target date funds hold different stock allocations (10% variance makes a significant difference in total return over years).
quan, I have used AI to answer tax related questions so that I could post here on HD, only to find that AI was wrong. User Beware.
Although I do practice benign neglect (thanks, Dan), I have never been interested in target date funds. I prefer to decide on my asset allocation and invest accordingly. Mark has an excellent point on this, too. I have been 50% in stocks for quite a few years, but I am older than you and have less income. I rebalance once a year when I take my RMD. I just recommended on another thread that the poster arrange one session with a fee for service planner operating as a fiduciary, and it might be useful for you too at this point. Definitely try to move funds to a Roth, I am in the second IRMAA bracket because of RMDs, but your income may be too high.
BTW, I don’t buy the notion that an AI doesn’t have an agenda. It may or may not have one of its own (yet) but it started out with one from its programmers. And its owners are very happy to scoop up all the data you give it.
My main concern with target date funds is their structure. When you need to sell during a market downturn, you’re forced to sell from a single combined fund that includes both stocks and bonds. You can’t selectively tap into just the bond portion while leaving your stocks alone to recover.
With separate equity and bond funds, you have more flexibility – you can draw from bonds during a down market and let your stock positions rebound. In a target date fund, everything’s bundled together at one unit price, so you lose that tactical advantage.
That’s why I prefer keeping equities and bonds in separate funds rather than using a combined target date approach. It’s just a personal preference, but I think the flexibility matters when drawing from a portfolio.
That’s a great point, Mark. Thanks!
Dana, not relying on savings to fund your life, gives you lots of great options. I think your decision to sell the 2025 fund makes sense, as long as you’re not the type to freak out at a little extra volatility. I think the 2060 fund is about right for a beneficiary who is currently 32.
Target Date (TD) funds enable benign neglect (credit to Kathy Wilhelm), which is a great thing for almost everyone, in my opinion. The expense ratios from Vanguard and Fidelity Freedom Index funds are very reasonable, though Fidelity also has TD funds that do not use index funds, so have higher fees.
You may not need an advisor. If you choose to seek one out, go for an hourly paid guy. My experience is that a commission based advisor will always find a reason why your current plan sucks, even when it doesn’t. 😌
“I think the 2060 fund is about right for a beneficiary who is currently 32.”
I was thinking the same, but then I realized her daughter would most likely receive the funds earlier than her retirement date and have to withdraw in total 10 years after inheritance. Might be another good question for a CFP.
Thanks, Dan!