Listen Money Matters - Free Your Inner Financial Badass. All The Stuff You Should Know About Personal Finance.

We’re big fans of Vanguard, but admittedly, investing in Vanguard funds is a bit more complicated than using a Robo Advisor.  In this article, we break down what we think of Vanguard’s 8 best funds while balancing both performance and cost. If you’re looking for a deeper dive into our logic as well as some colorful commentary than check out the podcast episode we did on this: Before we jump in, it’s important to mention why we are focusing so heavily on fees here. Due to their exponential nature, fees of just 1% can cause you to lose up to 25% of your earnings. That’s pretty horrendous and often what turns investors on to Vanguard in the first place. I also highly suggest you check the fees on your accounts via the free Personal Capital fee analyzer. In addition to running simulations, the analyzer pinpoints all of the overly fee-hungry funds across your accounts – retirement or otherwise. The difference between an Index Fund (ETF) and a Mutual Fund First, let’s quickly discuss what an Index Fund (ETF) a