How to compute real return including expense ratio
Returns reported by mutual funds to shareholders, google, etc. are computed after all the funds' costs, including Therefore the returns you see on google finance are the returns you would actually have gotten.
"&gt; They deficit spend. They increase prosperity and thus demand.  But what I'm saying is that there are more efficient ways of accomplishing this that doesn't involve any debt whatsoever. If the the debt money being spent is coming from your paycheck in the form of an increased cost of living then merely increasing the ratio of wages to capital returns would provide the same benefit without debt. In fact, this means of driving demand is so efficient that if you take it too far it'll drive stagflation when the cost to capital returns exceeds an optimal ratio.   &gt;The interesting side effect is, that they are making the economy do better  Yes, it certainly does over a limited number of years following the debt incurred. But it is ONLY an economic benefit because that same demand has already been taken from the economy in the form of wage suppression. As a ratio of returns and not absolute values. If those wage returns were too high relative to returns, like in the 1970s in the US, then driving more demand through debt spending would be the opposite of a benefit. It's ONLY a short term benefit because that demand has already been taken from your wages.  &gt;The government gives you more income than it takes from you in taxes.  This is true in more ways than one, and I'm not absolutely certain in which sense you mean it. In terms of say the earned income tax credit, it's nowhere near enough to cover the losses incurred through wage suppression. In terms of teachers, infrastructure up to a point, etc., these things have a productive return on investment.  &gt;Every bit of cut spending removes income from the population.  No. Not that the spending cuts being done are anything but harmful and costing the economy. But paying people to count flies on roadkill is not helpful at all. And if it results in a net positive it's because the economy is in a bad state of mismanagement, with wages (as an aggregate ratio of returns) too suppressed for a healthy economy. It's like cutting people and saying it benefits the economy by increasing the sale of band-aids and driving demand for doctors. Of course the band-aids help, but it doesn't mean the policies that makes it a benefit anything but a cost.   Once wages, as an aggregate ratio of returns, exceeds an optimal ratio, [like in the 1970s](http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2012/12/06/Andrew_Smithers_chart_blog_main_horizontal.JPG), then every new increase in demand results in a new deficit in supply that cannot be met due to constraints on capital returns. I call this a supply constrained economy, as opposed to the demand constrained economy we now live in. In this kind of economic environment there would even be any short term benefits to funding consumption with debt.  So basically you have two choices. Make everybody wealthy enough to match supply, while trying not to exceed it to avoid triggering too much inflation and encouraging investment in new productive capacity. Or suppressing wage returns too much relative to total returns inducing excessively low, and potentially negative, inflation. Making almost everybody much poorer than necessary. Then trying to fix the imbalance between supply and demand through debt spending. I would call the second choice a fools choice.  But none of this means that funding for teachers, social workers, etc., should go away. These things need their funding, and we should be paying the taxes to fund them. Not pretending that debt spending will let of have our cake and eat it to. It's like a pot luck dinner in which people bring IOUs in place of dishes until people are leaving dinner hungry because there's not enough to go around.  &gt;Our economic trouble has nothing to do with efficiency and how much work needs to be done, and everything to do with how much money people have to spend.  That is in fact true in our present economic circumstances. But that situation was created by wage suppression relative to total returns in aggregate. But, as the 1970s demonstrated, the opposite can also be true. This realization is what drove the Reagan revolution. Only the Fed policy operates, monetary easing and all, on the assumption that this is driven by the employment rate, or [NAIRU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIRU). It's not. It's driven by the aggregate ratio between capital to labor returns. And leads to bad economic conditions differently at both extremes. Which is why they find our present economic situation an enigmatic mystery.   The mistake of thinking ""how much money people have to spend,"" i.e., strictly demand side driven economics, is what created the economic problems that lead to Reagan. Only now the power structure takes the opposite extreme. In which supply side driven economics has become an article of faith. This is why the older generation, like myself, say and believe such bat shit crazy things about the economy today. The same older generation now that now drives politics. Because they came of age in the 1970s when what you are saying would have been a phenomenally bad policy. A policy that gave us stagflation that many classical Keynesian's thought impossible before then. They can't believe something that was so bad can now be a good thing. But it in fact is. Because the important thing for prosperity and growth is the optimal balance between supply and demand. Not the argument over whether the economy is supply side driven or demand side driven. Because either of those agendas can push the economy out of balance.  Automation will pretty certainly change everything about economics in the coming years. But that is not why we are in the situation we are in at this particular moment." "The reason that UltraLong funds and the like are bad isn't because of the leverage ratio. It's because they're compounded daily, and the product of all the doubled daily returns is not mathematically equivalent to the double the long-term return. I'd consider providing big fancy equations using uppercase pi as the 'product of elements in a sequence' operator and other calculus fanciness, but that would be overkill, I don't think I can do TeX here, and I don't know the relevant TeX anyway. Anyway. From the economics theory perspective, the ideal leverage ratio is 1X - that is, unlevered, straight investment. Consider: Using leverage costs money. You know that, surely. If someone could borrow money at N% and invest at an expected N+X%, where X > 0, then they would. They would borrow all the money they could and buy all the S&P500 they could. But when they bought all that S&P500, they'd eventually run out of people who were willing to sell it for that cheap. That would mean the excess return would be smaller. Eventually you'd get to a point where the excess return is... zero? .... well, no, empirically, we can see that it's definitely not zero, and that in the real world that stocks do return more than bonds. Why?  Because stocks are riskier than bonds. The difference in expected return between an index like the S&P500 and a US Treasury bond is due to the relative riskiness of the S&P500, which isn't guaranteed by the US Government to return your principal. Any money that you make off of leverage comes from assuming some sort of a risk. Now, assuming risk can be a profitable thing to do, but there are also a lot of people out there with higher risk tolerance than you, like insurance companies and billionaires, so the market isn't exactly short of people willing to take risks, and you shouldn't expect the returns of ""assuming risk"" in the general case to be qualitatively awesome. Now, it's true that investing in an unlevered fashion is risky also. But that's not an excuse to go leveraged anyway; it's a reason to hold back. In fact, regular stocks are sufficiently risky that most people probably shouldn't be holding a 100% stock portfolio. They should be tempering that risk with bonds, instead, and increasing the size of their bond holdings over time. The appropriate time to use leverage is when you have information which limits your risk. You have done research, and have reason to believe that you understand the future of an individual stock/index better than the rest of the stock market does. You calculate that the potential for achieving returns with leverage outweighs the risks. Then you dump your money into the leveraged position. (In exchange for this, the market receives information about anticipated future returns of this instrument, because of the price movement which occurs as a result of someone putting his money where his mouth is.) If you're just looking to dump money into broad market indicies in a leveraged fashion, you're doing it wrong. There is no free money. (Ed. Which is not to say there's not money. There's lots of money. But if you go looking for the free kind, you won't find it, and may end up with money that you thought was free but was actually quite expensive.) Edit. Okay, so you don't like my answer. I'm not surprised. I'm giving you a real answer instead of a ""make free money"" answer. Okay. Here's your ""how to make free money"" answer. Assume you are using a constant leverage ratio over the length of time you've invested your money, and you don't get to just jump into and out of the market (that's market-timing, not leverage) so you have to stay invested. You're going to have a scenario which falls into one of these categories: The S&P500 historically rises over time. The average rate of return probably exceeds the average interest rate. So the ideal leverage ratio is infinite. Of course, this is a stupid answer in real life because you can't pull that off. Your risk tolerance is too low and you will have trouble finding a lender willing to lend you unsecured money, and you'll probably lose all your money in a crash sooner or later. Ultimately it's a stupid answer because you're asking the wrong question. You should probably ask a better question: ""when I use leverage to gain additional exposure to risk, am I being properly compensated for assuming that risk?""" "I'm going to answer your questions out of order. Emergency fund: Depending on how conservative you are and how much insurance you have, you may want anywhere from 3-12 months of your expenses on hand. I like to keep 6 months worth liquid in a ""high-yield"" savings account. For your current expenses that would be $24k, but when this transaction completes, you will have a mortgage payment (which usually includes home-owners insurance and property taxes in addition to your other expenses) so a conservative guess might be an additional $3k/month, or a total of $42k for six months of expenses. So $40-$100k for an emergency fund depending on how conservative you are personally. Down payment: You should pay no less than 20% down ($150k) on a loan that size, particularly since you can afford it. My own philosophy is to pay as much as I can and pay the loan off as soon as possible, but there are valid reasons not to do that. If you can get a higher rate of return from that money invested elsewhere you may wish to keep a mortgage longer and invest the other money elsewhere. Mortgage term: A 15-year loan will generally get you the best interest rate available. If you paid $400k down, financing $350k at a 3.5% rate, your payment would be about $2500 on a 15-year loan. That doesn't include property taxes and home-owners insurance, but without knowing precisely where you live, I have no idea whether those would keep you inside the $3000 of additional monthly home expenses I mentioned above when discussing the emergency fund. That's how I would divide it up. I'd also pay more than the $2500 toward the mortgage if I could afford to, though I've always made that decision on a monthly basis when drawing up the budget for the next month." As a general rule, diversification means carrying sufficient amounts in cash equivalents, stocks, bonds, and real estate.   An emergency fund should have six months income (conservative) or expenses (less conservative) in some kind of cash equivalent (like a savings account).  As you approach retirement, that number should increase.  At retirement, it should be something like five years of expenses.  At that time, it is no longer an emergency fund, it's your everyday expenses.  You can use a pension or social security to offset your effective monthly expenses for the purpose of that fund.  You should five years net expenses after income in cash equivalents after retirement.   The normal diversification ratio for stocks, bonds, and real estate is something like 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% real estate.  You can count the equity in your house as part of the real estate share.  For most people, the house will be sufficient diversification into real estate.   That said, you should not buy a second home as an investment.  Buy the second home if you can afford it and if it makes you happy.  Then consider if you want to keep your first home as an investment or just sell it now.   Look at your overall ownership to determine if you are overweighted into real estate.  Your primary house is not an investment, but it is an ownership.  If 90% of your net worth is real estate, then you are probably underinvested in securities like stocks and bonds.  50% should probably be an upper bound, and 20% real estate would be more diversified.   If your 401k has an employer match, you should almost certainly put enough in it to get the full match.   I prefer a ratio of 70-75% stocks to 25-30% bonds at all ages.  This matches the overall market diversification.  Rebalance to stay in that range regularly, possibly by investing in the underweight security.  Adding real estate to that, my preference would be for real estate to be roughly a quarter of the value of securities.  So around 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% real estate.  A 50% share for real estate is more aggressive but can work.   Along with a house or rental properties, another option for increasing the real estate share is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).  These are essentially a mutual fund for real estate.  This takes you out of the business of actively managing properties.   If you really want to manage rentals, make sure that you list all the expenses.  These include:   Also be careful that you are able to handle it if things change.  Perhaps today there is a tremendous shortage of rental properties and the vacancy rate is close to zero.  What happens in a few years when new construction provides more slack?   Some kinds of maintenance can't be done with tenants.  Also, some kinds of maintenance will scare away new tenants.  So just as you are paying out a large amount of money, you also aren't getting rent.  You need to be able to handle the loss of income and the large expense at the same time.   Don't forget the sales value of your current house.  Perhaps you bought when houses were cheaper.  Maybe you'd be better off taking the current equity that you have in that house and putting it into your new house's mortgage.  Yes, the old mortgage payment may be lower than the rent you could get, but the rent over the next thirty years might be less than what you could get for the house if you sold it.  Are you better off with minimal equity in two houses or good equity with one house?   I would feel better about this purchase if you were saying that you were doing this in addition to your 401k.  Doing this instead of your 401k seems sketchy to me.  What will you do if there is another housing crash?  With a little bad luck, you could end up underwater on two mortgages and unable to make payments.  Or perhaps not underwater on the current house, but not getting much back on a sale either.   All that said, maybe it's a good deal.  You have more information about it than we do.  Just...be careful. You could use  the Gordon growth model implied expected return: P = D/(r-g) --&gt; r = D/P (forward dividend yield) + g (expected dividend growth). But obviously there is no such thing as a good market return proxy. R has really good package that lets you calculate the return of rebalanced portfolios. The package is called: PerformanceAnalytics (see: http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/PerformanceAnalytics/docs/Return.portfolio). I quickly wrote a small script for you that lets you do exactly what you want.  Code: By default the portfolio is rebalanced to an equally weighted portfolio. It is also possible to rebalance your portfolio using custom weights. See the documentation on how to do this.  In order for this code to work you need to have your data already in return terms. You can do this easily in Excel. Make sure your data in excel looks like this: Than export your data to a CSV file. Note: before you run the code make sure you have installed the package PerformanceAnalytics. You can do this as follows:  Let me know if you have any questions regarding the above. One thing I would add to @littleadv (buy an ETF instead of doing your own) answer would be ensure that the dividend yield matches.  Expense ratios aren't the only thing that eat you with mutual funds: the managers can hold on to a large percentage of the dividends that the stocks normally pay (for instance, if by holding onto the same stocks, you would normally receive 3% a year in dividends, but by having a mutual fund, you only receive .75%, that's an additional cost to you).  If you tried to match the DJIA on your own, you would have an advantage of receiving the dividend yields on the stocks paying dividends.  The downsides: distributing your investments to match and the costs of actual purchases. You are comparing a risk-free cost with a risky return. If you can tolerate that level of risk (the ups and downs of the investment) for the chance that you'll come out ahead in the long-run, then sure, you could do that.   So the parameters to your equation would be: If you assume that the risky returns are normally distributed, then you can use normal probability tables to determine what risk level you can tolerate. To put some real numbers to it, take the average S&P 500 return of 10% and standard deviation of 18%.  Using standard normal functions, we can calculate the probability that you earn more than various interest rates: so even with a low 3% interest rate, there's roughly a 1 in 3 chance that you'll actually be worse off (the gains on your investments will be less than the interest you pay).  In any case there's a 3 in 10 chance that your investments will lose money.