My 70/30 ETF plan is up 11.64% YTD. That is encouraging—but it does not answer the question I care about most.
I am not someone who grew up studying the stock market.
For most of my working life, my investing experience was limited to an employee stock-purchase plan and one memorable decision after I sold my house in August 2014. The closing check arrived in early September. I used part of that money to buy Apple and Alibaba together, around the time Alibaba began trading in New York on September 19.
Then life happened. I eventually had to sell them.
That part matters more than the stocks I picked. Looking backward, it is easy to calculate what I might have made by holding Apple. Real life does not occur inside a return calculator. When money is needed, an investment can become cash whether the timing is good or terrible.
More than a decade later, retirement pushed me back toward the market. This time I did not want to find the next Apple. I wanted a process I could understand and repeat.
That is how I arrived at 70% VOO and 30% QQQM.
- ETF
- An exchange-traded fund—a basket of investments that can be bought and sold like a stock.
- Index
- A defined group of investments used to measure or represent part of a market.
- Expense ratio
- The annual operating cost charged by a fund, shown as a percentage.
- YTD
- Year to date, meaning from the start of this calendar year through today.
- Overlap
- The same companies appearing inside more than one fund.
Why I picked ETFs instead of individual stocks
Apple and Alibaba taught me something, but not the lesson people might expect.
The lesson was not that I should become better at choosing winning companies. It was that a good company and a workable personal plan are two different things.
With an individual stock, I have to keep deciding whether that company is still worth owning. I have to understand its competition, products, leadership, price and risks. I also know myself: a dramatic headline can make me want to act.
An ETF does not remove risk. It changes the job.
The plan became easier to follow when every month required the same two-part action.
Instead of trying to choose one company, I can buy a basket and concentrate on a simpler question: Can I keep contributing without constantly redesigning the plan?
That sounded more realistic for someone rebuilding retirement savings in his early 50s.
Why VOO became the 70% foundation
VOO follows the S&P 500, an index of roughly 500 large U.S. companies. Its expense ratio is 0.03%. In plain English, that is about $3 a year for every $10,000 invested, although the cost is reflected inside the fund rather than arriving as a bill.
I chose VOO because I wanted the larger part of the account spread across major companies instead of depending on one or two names.
I used to explain this choice too casually: America would have to fail for VOO not to perform.
That is not accurate. VOO can fall hard while the country and its companies continue operating. Recessions, high valuations, rate changes and fear can all hurt stock prices. “Broad” does not mean “safe,” and 500 companies do not protect me from a broad market decline.
Still, VOO gives me a foundation I can understand: a large slice of the U.S. stock market at a low fund cost.
Why QQQM gets the other 30%
QQQM follows the Nasdaq-100, which includes 100 of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on Nasdaq. Its expense ratio is 0.15%—about $15 a year per $10,000 invested.
I added it because I wanted a more aggressive growth tilt.
That phrase needs translation. Growth tilt means deliberately giving more weight to companies whose prices depend heavily on expectations of future growth. The ride can be faster on the way up and rougher on the way down.
I also preferred QQQM’s lower fee compared with the older QQQ fund that tracks the same index. But QQQM is not simply “the technology fund.” The Nasdaq-100 excludes financial companies and follows listing rules, not my personal definition of innovation.
Thirty percent felt large enough to matter without allowing the growth side to become the entire plan. There is nothing scientifically perfect about 70/30. It is the starting rule I chose for a one-year experiment.
A checkpoint, not proof
What does the green number actually tell me?
As of August 27, 2026, my brokerage account reports an 11.64% year-to-date return. Earlier in the year, it was above 15%.
My personal goal was 10% YTD, so seeing 11.64% feels good. I would be pretending if I said otherwise.
But one green number can make almost any plan look smarter than it is.
The number does not prove that 70/30 is the best allocation. It does not promise 10% next year. It is not the published return of VOO or QQQM, either. It is the return shown in my account, affected by when I bought and how the brokerage calculates performance. New contributions also increase the account balance, but adding money is not the same as earning a return.
The better test will come when both funds fall and the green number disappears.
The uncomfortable part: VOO and QQQM overlap
Search for “VOO and QQQM together,” and the same question appears again and again: Is there too much overlap?
It is a fair question. Recent official holdings snapshots show many of the same giant companies near the top of both funds, including names such as Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Broadcom, Meta and Tesla. Holdings and weights change, so a dated snapshot is not a permanent overlap score.
This means my two ETFs are not two completely different baskets. Adding QQQM gives extra weight to several companies I already own through VOO.
Two fund names can still lead back to many of the same companies.
That is concentration—not automatically a mistake, and definitely not free diversification.
I chose it deliberately because I wanted more growth exposure. The honest version of the plan is therefore not “VOO for safety plus QQQM for diversification.” It is VOO as the core, with QQQM turning up the same large-growth dial.
Two tickers. Some of the same companies.
VOO–QQQM overlap explorer
Choose a view to see which names appeared near the top of recent official holdings snapshots. This is a learning aid—not a live overlap score.
Holdings and weights change. VOO snapshot: April 30, 2026. QQQM snapshot: February 28, 2026. Because the dates differ, this tool intentionally avoids claiming an exact overlap percentage.
Shared names in the dated snapshots: Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Broadcom, Meta and Tesla.
A simple overlap check
Before combining two ETFs, I now ask three questions:
- What are the largest holdings in each fund? If the same names dominate both lists, the second ticker may change less than it appears.
- What job does each fund have? My answer is foundation for VOO, aggressive tilt for QQQM.
- Would I keep the allocation after a sharp decline? If not, the planned risk may exist only on paper.
This check is more useful to me than arguing over whether overlap is universally good or bad. The real issue is whether I understand what I own.
The one-year experiment
What I am actually testing
I am not testing whether I can beat every other portfolio in 2026. A single year cannot answer that. I am testing whether I can:
- continue investing each month;
- stay close to 70/30 without chasing whichever fund just rose;
- separate contributions from investment returns;
- tolerate a meaningful decline without abandoning the plan;
- explain, in plain language, why I still own both funds.
At year-end, I may keep the allocation, reduce QQQM, or decide that the overlap is larger than I want. Changing my mind after learning is not failure. Changing it every time the market moves would be a problem.
The plan has to survive real life
If I had kept every Apple share I bought in 2014, this story would sound more impressive.
But I did not. I needed the money, and I sold.
That experience is one reason I no longer judge an investment plan only by its theoretical return. A plan also needs room for job loss, health problems, debt and all the other events that do not appear in a fund chart.
My 11.64% YTD result is a pleasant checkpoint. It is not the ending, and it is certainly not proof that I have solved retirement.
The more important change is quieter: I stopped looking for one stock that could rescue the future. I chose a simple process, wrote down why I chose it, and gave myself a year to see whether I can actually live with it.
This article describes my personal experience and learning process. It is not individualized financial, investment, or tax advice.
Leave a Reply