3.Build Up Taxable Accounts Today's erratic stock markets illustrate why it's smart to keep a chunk of your savings in taxable accounts--you can always get your hands on the money. General advice: Use taxable accounts to hold individual stocks (these present better opportunities for loss harvesting) and index funds or exchange-traded index funds that don't throw off much taxable income. Put your assets with the highest growth potential in a Roth. Taxable bonds and REITs belong in a pretax 401(k) or IRA. Having taxable accounts also allows you to better control how much taxable income you recognize each year in retirement.

Quoting from [eve]:

3.Build Up Taxable Accounts Today's erratic stock markets illustrate why it's smart to keep a chunk of your savings in taxable accounts--you can always get your hands on the money. General advice: Use taxable accounts to hold individual stocks (these present better opportunities for loss harvesting) and index funds or exchange-traded index funds that don't throw off much taxable income. Put your assets with the highest growth potential in a Roth. Taxable bonds and REITs belong in a pretax 401(k) or IRA. Having taxable accounts also allows you to better control how much taxable income you recognize each year in retirement.