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How to choose mutual funds to invest in (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 months ago by scytale@lemm.ee to c/personalfinance@lemmy.ml

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I've been on an HSA+HDHP for a couple of years now and only realized recently the interest earned from investing HSA money is also tax free, so I want to start investing a part of my savings and see how it goes. I have 2 options, Betterment or Mutual Funds. I figured I'd try the latter to avoid fees, but I'm not sure which funds to choose. My HSA currently provides 30 fund options.

I see people mentioning Vanguard a lot so I spread out my initial investment into 25% chunks across 4 different Vanguard funds. How did I choose them? Well I literally just looked at the performance graphs and selected the ones that historically went up steadily without major dips. As a total noob, how can I improve my choices? Is there a simple way to decide without having to dive deep into the stock market?

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[–] Steve@communick.news 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

We'd really need to know what the 30 options are, to recommend one.

But I'd really recomend against it. The point of an HSA is to have cash available for medical expenses and emergencies. Over the long term (decades) index funds do consistently trend up. But on any given day, you never know. Money you were expecting to be there might not be. Now you've got a whole other problem.

If you have more money than you can imagine needing in the HSA, pick something with slow consistent growth and low or zero volatility.

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Thanks for the advice. Yup, I realize health funds shouldn't be gambled, that's why I'm taking a conservative approach and just investing a small % of my HSA. I'm at a point right now where I have enough funds for current health needs and emergencies (my current HDHP coverage is pretty good), so I'm just dipping my toes with increasing those funds via other avenues.

And for the 30 options, I'll post back here when I get back to my desk.