Investing Framework

General Questions

1. What is your risk tolerance?
2. How much do you need to set aside for expenses each month?
3. How much is left over after expenses are paid?
4. How much are you investing currently?
5. What is your current asset allocation?
6. What are your investment goals?
7. What is the longest period of time you'd be willing to wait before taking your money out of your portfolio?
8. Any immediate (short- to mid-term) liquidity needs?
9. Do you have an emergency fund? How many months would it cover?

Asset Allocation Questions

1. Do you own any stocks? Do you pick stocks or buy indexes (or both)? What markets, segments and sectors are you invested in?
2. Do you own any bonds? (Pick or Index?) What kinds of bonds do you own?
3. Real estate?
4. Precious metals?
5. Bitcoin (or other digital currencies)?
6. Commodities?
7. Art?
8. Other Alternatives or Derivatives?

Disposition Questions

1. Have you ever bought a stock (or other asset) on a tip from a friend, popular investing website or other personality?
2. Do you like reviewing financial statements, earnings data, and other fundamental information of individual securities (i.e. stocks)?
3. Have you ever studied a price chart?
4. Imagine you invested $10,000 into a fund or stock and it subsequently went down 10% over the next 2 weeks. How would you feel? (What if it went down 30%?)
5. What does the term diversification mean to you and is it important?
6. What is the largest percentage of your net worth that you've ever had invested in any single security or asset (be it a house, a stock, an index, or an asset class in general; e.g. bonds)?
7. What does the term risk mean to you as it relates to particular investments or investing in general?

Self-Reflection Questions

1. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being VERY EASY and 5 being VERY DIFFICULT, how difficult was it for you to answer the questions listed above? (1=VERY EASY, 2=EASY, 3=MODERATE, 4=DIFFICULT, 5=VERY DIFFICULT)
2. Did you need to look up the meaning of any words or ask anyone for help in order to answer any of them? (0=NONE, 1=SOME, 2=MANY/ALL)
3. Did you know (offhand) all of the information relating to your current expenses, emergency fund, and current portfolio? Or did you need to look up some of this information? (0=I KNEW IT ALL, 1=I KNEW SOME, 2=I KNEW LITTLE/NOTHING OFFHAND)

Self-Classification of Expertise

From the self-reflection questions, give yourself 9 points to begin.

• (#1) Subtract from your starting tally the number you gave as an answer to the first Self-Reflection Question. (If you answered 4, meaning "DIFFICULT", for #1, then your new point total would be: 9-4=5.)
• (#2) Subtract from your new total the value from Self-Reflection Question #2 relating to knowing word meanings. (If you answered 1=SOME, then subtract this from your previous total; i.e., 4-1=3.)
• (#3) Subtract from your current tally the value for your answer from Self-Reflection Question #3. (If you answered 2=I KNEW LITTLE/NOTHING OFFHAND, then your new total would be: 3-2=1.)

Take your final points total and find your expertise level below:

• 0-2 points --> BEGINNER
• 3-5 points --> INTERMEDIATE
• 6-8 points --> ADVANCED

Review the sample portfolios listed in the section that pertains to your expertise level below:

BEGINNER PORTFOLIOS:

"Sixty-Forty"

• 60% VTI - US broad market stock index
• 40% AGG - US diversified bond portfolio

"Growth"

• 80% VTI - US broad market stock index
• 20% AGG - US diversified bond portfolio

"Income"

• 50% AGG - US diversified bond portfolio
• 25% VNQ - US real estate investment trust index
• 25% VIG - US dividend growth stock index

INTERMEDIATE PORTFOLIOS:

"Inflation Hedged"

• 60% VTI - US broad market stock index
• 30% AGG - US diversified bond portfolio
• 10% PHYS - Sprott physical gold bullion trust

"More Growth"

• 60% VOO - US S&P500 stock index
• 20% IJR - US small cap stock index
• 20% AGG - US diversified bond portfolio

"Advanced Income"

• 35% AGG - US diversified bond portfolio
• 25% VNQ - US real estate investment trust index
• 25% VIG - US dividend growth stock index
• 15% MUB - US municipal bond fund (income tax free)

Advanced Portfolios

"Asset Allocation"

• 30% VTI - US broad market stock index
• 10% VEA - Ex-US developed broad market stock index
• 10% EEM - Emerging market broad market stock index
• 10% VNQ - US real estate investment trust index fund
• 10% SCHO - 1-3 year duration US treasury bond fund
• 10% SPTL - 20+ year duration US treasury bond fund
• 10% COM - Commodity futures active 'long/flat' fund
• 10% GBTC - Grayscale physical bitcoin trust

"Trust Minimized"

• 50% SPY - US S&P500 stock index (UIT structure; no securities lending) - Get physical paper shares from your broker if you desire
• 20% Real Estate - Rental Properties and/or Farmland
• 10% Art
• 10% Gold and Silver Bullion
• 10% Bitcoin

"Risk Dispersion"

• 40% VT - Global broad-market stock index fund
• 20% Bitcoin - Stored in an offline, cold wallet
• 20% TLT - 20+ year US treasury bond index fund
• 10% RORO - Tactical rotation ETF (swaps between long-bond and small-cap stocks based on Gold/Lumber ratio, weekly rotation)
• 5% PHYS - Sprott physical gold bullion trust
• 5% PFIX - Interest rate hedge ETF. Goes up when long duration bonds go down sharply (pushing rates up).

Not investment advice. Just ideas. Do your own research.