While a comfortable retirement is the ultimate end goal for most people, it’s also one of the most daunting financial goals. Everybody dreams of a retirement in a warm weather climate full of hobbies, travel or whatever it is you strive, few have achieved the financial means to make it happen.

Survey after survey has indicated that most American households are woefully underprepared for retirement.

The median working person (which means half have more, half have less) has just $27,000 saved in a retirement account. Granted, that takes into account younger workers who haven’t had as much time to save up, but it’s still a harrowing number. More harrowing, unfortunately, is the fact that the median savings for people age 65 and older, the age around which many people start retiring, is just $70,000.

To put that into perspective, if you take that $70,000 figure and apply the generally-accepted 4% annual withdrawal rate, that retirement account would produce a monthly income of just $235.

A few people might still have access to a pension. Many will need to make do with whatever Social Security provides. Some, unfortunately, will need to keep working to make ends meet and probably never achieve a true retirement.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re still early in your career, you still have plenty of time to create a retirement savings plan now, start stuffing as much money as you can into it and eventually leave the workforce with more than enough to live off of.

Even if you’re later into your career and have fallen behind, there’s still time to improve your situation. Retirement savings is one of the best examples of “better late than never”. Even if you’re into your 50s and beyond, every dollar you set aside gives you greater flexibility down the road.

No matter where you are in your life cycle and no matter how much you’ve saved up to this point, there’s an ETF that fits your situation!

Vanguard is one of the most popular investment providers in the world. Its wide range of ultra-cheap products make it the ideal spot to open up a brokerage account and start building your retirement savings. Because of that (and because I have my retirement account there as well), we’ll look at the Vanguard family of ETFs as your primary investment options.

For this exercise, I’ll look at every decade of your journey to retirement and offer a top ETF pick for that age bracket, from the 20s all the way up through in-retirement. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should ONLY consider that fund. It simply means that it’s an age-appropriate ETF to consider adding to your portfolio at that age. If you’re reading this, you’re in your 40s or 50s and just investing for the first time, you’ll probably want to look at the ETF picks I’ve made in the 20s and 30s section of this list to build the foundation of a well-rounded portfolio and then round that core out with the latest picks. And there’s nothing wrong with tweaking any of these ideas to fit your personal situation, risk tolerance and time frame. It’s better to be more conservative in your investment choices than be not invested at all!

With that said, let’s look at some ETFs for every life stage!

20’s: Laying The Foundation

At this point in your life, you’ve probably got your first real job and some actual income for the first time in your life. Retirement is probably the last thing on your mind, but this is the absolute best time to get started!

That’s because of the power of compounding. Any money you invest now has potentially 40+ years to grow, a lot of time for your money to make money on its own!

Here’s an example that’ll get your attention. You invest just $1000 at age 20 and leave it untouched until you’re 65 years old. If you’re able to earn 6% annually on that money, it’ll turn into $13,764! And that’s if you never add another dime to it. If you do, however, add just another $100 a month to that, your nest egg turns into $290,000!

$1000 invested at age 20 + $100/month invested thereafter = $290,000 at age 65!

Getting started early makes a HUGE difference down the road.

My Pick: Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)

At this age, you want to think about building the core of your portfolio. That means primarily equities (since you’ll have years to ride out the highs & lows) that are broadly diversified and ultra-cheap.

VTI invests in more than 3,700 U.S. companies from large to small. Because it’s market-cap weighted, the big names, including Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Walmart, receive the largest allocations (roughly 75% of the fund is invested in large company stocks). Its annual expense ratio is just 0.03%, meaning you pay next to nothing to own it. It’s a great cornerstone for long-term investing!

30’s: Thinking Globally

After you’ve established your foundation, it’s time to begin thinking about building around it. This is the point where you can consider adding other asset classes and strategies since your core buy-and-hold position is already in place.

This is the spot where some people might consider adding bonds to their portfolio in order to diversify and dial down their risk a step. Personally, I still think people should still stick with stocks here. With 30 years to go until retirement, there’s still more than enough time to ride out even deeper bear markets in order to capture the above average return potential of equities. They key is to buy & hold and resist the urge to get in and/or get out based on what’s happening.

My Pick: Vanguard Total International Stock (VXUS)

If VTI invests in the entire U.S. stock market, VXUS invests in pretty everything else around the world, including even South America and Africa. Pairing VXUS with VTI adds another 8500 stocks to your portfolio and gives you an ownership stake in nearly every publicly traded company in the world! And you can have it for a cost of just 0.07% annually. One of the best deals around!

A lot of people will scoff at the idea of investing internationally. It’s full of companies they’re not familiar with, it can be riskier and, historically, it hasn’t returned as much as the United States. While those points are true, it’s important to remember this. International stocks often go through long multi-year periods where they outperform the S&P 500. It just hasn’t happened lately, so people get the impression it never happens. Plus, since international markets don’t always move in tandem with U.S. stocks, they provide risk-reducing benefits to your overall portfolio.

How much international exposure you wish to add is up to your personal risk tolerance, but I think it’s important to have at least some exposure to other markets around the world.

40’s: The Big Saving Years

Here’s the time of your life where you’re well-established and you’re probably starting to make more money (although a lot of that may be headed right back out the door because of children or a mortgage). In your portfolio, you’ve got your core built. Now, you can add around it.

Your 40s are also the time where you should start to think about risk management. You’re potentially only 20 years away from retirement now and not every risky bet will pay off. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t put some money into tech stocks or something like that with a small percentage of your money, but you want to be mindful of putting too much into them. Durable, defensive equities might be more appropriate.

My Pick: Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG)

Studies have shown that dividend paying stocks tend to outperform non-dividend paying stocks over the long-term. Dividend payers tend to be quality companies built on strong balance sheets and cash flows. Plus, the income generated by those dividends can help offset any potential losses in the stock’s price.

VIG invests in companies with a 10+ year streak of consecutive annual dividend increases. Companies that keep increasing their shareholder payouts are probably leaders in their chosen sectors and have a greater chance of withstanding any short-term economic downturns. Dividend stocks, realistically, belong in almost every portfolio.

50’s: Time To Think About Protection

In your 50s, it’s time to start considering principal preservation. If you plan on retiring in 10 years (or even less), you may not have the time to recover from a steep bear market. The last thing you want to do is experience a major decline in your portfolio’s value right when you need the money.

My Pick: Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND)

Bonds are the classic diversifier to stocks because they often move in the opposite direction of stocks. When stocks are going up, investors tend to think they don’t need the protection and safety of bonds as much. On the flip side, when stocks are going down, investors tend to seek out those safe havens much quicker!

BND invests in the total investment-grade U.S.-denominated bond market. In other words, these are higher quality fixed income securities across both the corporate bond market and U.S. Treasuries (about a 1/3 to 2/3 split currently). Because they stay away from junk bonds, they’re less volatile, have a lower default risk and a much higher propensity to continue their income streams over time. Like VTI, it’s a great low cost way to capture the entire bond market, which makes a perfect complement to an existing all-stock portfolio.

60’s: Hitting The Finish Line Safely

Here’s where principal protection becomes not just recommended, but necessary. This is not the time to be thinking about maximizing your potential for gains. It’s the time to be thinking about minimizing your downside risk. As I already said above, you won’t have the time in your 60s to recover from a major market decline, so you want to do what you can to minimize your exposure to one.

My Pick: Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF (BSV)

I’m sticking with the bond theme here, but pivoting to just those of the short-term variety. The composition of BSV is very similar to that of BND, but both the time to maturity and volatility of the portfolio is less than half that of BSV. That lack of volatility is what’s going to be most important here. Investors should consider reducing their equity allocations in favor of increasing fixed income allocations even more than they might have done in their 50s. If you use the rule of 120 (i.e. 120 minus your age is how much you should have invested in stocks), a roughly 50/50 split between stocks and bonds in your portfolio might be appropriate.

The best thing is that you no longer need to necessarily sacrifice returns when shifting to bonds. Today, BSV is paying an annual yield of around 4.4%, not a bad trade-off!

Retirement: Creating An Income Stream

When you’re actually in retirement, your portfolio should be conservative. That doesn’t mean giving up on equities altogether. In fact, you should probably still have a 30-40% allocation to stocks in order to provide the growth you might need over the next 20-30 years or more that you’re in retirement.

But the priority should be principal preservation. You’re likely no longer adding to your portfolio, you’re withdrawing what you’ve accumulated. That means you likely no longer have the means of replacing that money when it’s taken out by income from a job.

My Pick: Vanguard Ultra-Short Bond ETF (VUSB)

If you’re looking for just a steady, predictable income source, VUSB does a great job. It pays nearly the same 4.4% yield of other bond ETFs, but comes with almost no share price fluctuation. Think of it as the next step up the risk ladder from a straight money market fund.

You don’t necessarily need to put all of your retirement eggs in this basket, but it makes for a great safety valve for your portfolio while still providing a really nice yield in the process.

Conclusion

A lot of people like to invest in other areas, such as real estate, gold, commodities and bitcoin, but these six ETFs (or something similar) should be among the investments in the core of your portfolio. There’s nothing wrong with investing in any of the things I just mentioned, but you’ll want to sprinkle them in in order to avoid the risk of overexposure. There are more than 3,000 funds currently in the ETF universe, so there are no shortage of options today.

Retirement is an achievable goal no matter what age you’re at. What it looks like will vary, but taking the steps now to prepare yourself financially and build your nest egg will only help down the road.