conversation: User (fangs123): "I've been following the approach laid in out in http://paulmerriman.com/a-vanguard-fund-strategy-double-nest-egg/ to invest in the "nine no-load Vanguard funds" but was looking to simplify everything by moving everything into the Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 fund.\n\nWhat are the tradeoffs between these two approaches?  The latter is more simple and easy for me to understand.  Also it seems like the target retirement fund is no-load and has a relatively low expense ratio of 0.16%, the same as many of the other nine, no-load Vanguard funds."
  Self: "The target date fund is less diversified than Paul Merriman's approach as his goal is to include a slice of every asset class.  The target date fund is also going to be more conservative.\n\nIf you want a simpler strategy, you could do a three fund strategy:\n\nhttps://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio\n\nI have been following the 9 fund strategy with Vanguard ETFs since November of 2015 and I am up 10.33% including dividends though that time, granted it is too short of period of time to make any judgement honestly."
  