BND
Vanguard Total Bond Market
stock NASDAQ ETF

No its not unreasonable. Everyone has a different risk tolerance. 50% in bonds is a conservative allocation for someone about 56 years old, but it is not a terrible allocation.
Also, if you have a large amount of money you want to convert to fixed income, spend time learning about different fixed income investments instead of just going into BND or AGG.

Or just AOA to get effectively 48% VTI, 32% VXUS, and 20% BND all in one ETF

I would avoid BND, AGG, or other bond indexes like the plague. There are all kids of managed bond funds out there that are not larded up with Treasuries, and therefore have a higher yield than BND, are less volatile, and have better total returns over the years.
FWIW: I'm retired and living good on bond fund interest. My AA is 32/68.

50% VTI
35% VXUS
15% BND

Wow, it's really clear that you don't understand how bonds work and are used in portfolios. You're also forgetting that a large portion of BND is held in retirement accounts.
I am not an advisor, but at least I take time to understand investments that I talk about. And I've had to help a couple relatives undo the annuities that unscrupulous agents got them into, so I understand a little bit about how those work, too.
I'm not going to continue this. Good day.

BND will probably get crushed if the Fed raises rates 3 times this year. Active bond managers and being thoughtful about duration risk is a much better way to go imo

I dont understand the love of VXUS. There are better options for intl exposure. BND is for people of 60, and there is no reason to buy a Bond Fund since you can just buy the Bond.

You can probably dump BND being 20 years old. You can just leave cash in SGOV or whatever default money market fund vanguard and fidelity has.

Year to date…
NAV of BND is down $.93.
The yield has produced $1.21 before taxes
Remove the yield because most of the performance numbers assume it’s in a tax free account and all dividends are reinvested. Those dividends are taxed regardless of reinvestment which brings the total return negative.
My alternative over that same time, which isn’t for all people and I’m not suggesting replaces your bond position, is up 2.5% without market involvement and will continues to grow tax deferred for the next few years.
It’s a good place to be and makes sense sometimes.

1/3 in a HYSA and 2/3 in a brokerage account (50% BND and 50% SGOV).

From those choices, if you want a global stock portfolio, pick a 60/40 allocation of BlackRock Dow Jones US Total Stock Idx and State St Gbl AllCp Eq ex-US Idx SL Cl II. If you need bonds, pick BOI Internal Core Bond Fund after reading its prospectus to see if it's similar to a total bond fund like BND or VGIT.
Target date funds a usual recommendation for a set and forget invest, but the Dynamic funds are actively manged and may not be best, especially if they have a high expense ratio in your plan.
Speaking of your plan, it having a Dow Jones index but not a S&P 500 index is an odd choice. Depending on how long you might stay at your current employer, petitioning for a better plan might be worth it:
[https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/How\_to\_campaign\_for\_a\_better\_401(k)\_plan?\_\_cf\_chl\_f\_tk=yizdIreSJclfH0nDkmpty2y4q5Dry4EwjJ2GQxRxDM8-1783117471-1.0.1.1-yRqVr6Ljv.A\_OOquhzCJswrA.PK7\_lEOurI8lhIdzqE](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/How_to_campaign_for_a_better_401(k)_plan?__cf_chl_f_tk=yizdIreSJclfH0nDkmpty2y4q5Dry4EwjJ2GQxRxDM8-1783117471-1.0.1.1-yRqVr6Ljv.A_OOquhzCJswrA.PK7_lEOurI8lhIdzqE)

Equities means stocks (as opposed to bonds). In your original question you said “these three stocks” but VTI, VXUS, and BND are not individual stocks but rather baskets of very many individual stocks in the case of VTI, VXUS, and VT and very many individual bonds in the case of BND. The term for these investment instruments is ETF, short for exchange-traded funds.
Volatility refers the price movement of, in this case, the ETFs under discussion. Think of it, as first at least, as the ups and downs of the ETF price over some time period. Naturally, the value of your investment will move up and down with these prices. Long term investors are (very broadly speaking here) not too worried about week to week, month to month, or even year to year volatility, since they have long time horizons and, again very broadly speaking, the stock market has rewarded patient long term investors who have diversified holdings, such as the ETFs being discussed here.

It's because of the holdings of BND. What you are looking for is stripped bonds.

>For starters, can someone give an explanation of why these three stocks are seen as such powerhouses?
These are funds, not stocks. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio - You'll note that the name is a bit of a misnomer, having coverage of the 3 main categories below is more important than the number of funds used to achieve that.
VTI gives exposure to a weighted version (bigger companies get a bigger slice) of essentially the US total stock market. It gives you exposure to over 3,400 (currently, this number changes from time to time) US stocks with a single purchase.
VXUS is the same thing except for outside the US. Currently over 8,500 stocks from dozens of countries that aren't the US with a single purchase.
On similar lines, VT is currently 10,000 stocks from both in and outside of the US.
BND is US bonds (government and corporate). Bonds have different risks than stocks and are generally seen safer than stocks (but as such, have lower expected long term returns).
So VTI + VXUS + BND (or VT + BND) gives you essentially total world stock coverage plus a helping of another asset class.
>and I want to keep things as simple as possible.
If this would be a tax advantaged account (such as IRA or HSA or 401K), a target date (index) fund or target allocation (index) fund are effectively the 3 fund concept in a single wrapper, managed for you. They are designed to be "one and done," the only thing you hold. They're fully diversified internally for you. These can be found with expense ratios as low as 0.08%-0.12% for the Fidelity, iShares, Schwab, and Vanguard index based ones.
>Also, what percentage of my paychecks should I contribute?
Follow the /r/personalfinance Prime Directive: https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance/w/commontopics
>And I assume that I want to keep the same overall ratio when investing that percentage?
There are 2 main strategies within US to international stocks, both are reasonable:
* Use a fixed target percentage. This one would be keeping the ratio.
* Drift with global market cap weight changes, you'd set it once and then future contributions would mirror the ratio the VTI and VXUS are at. Or using only VT handles this for you.
There are also at least 2 main ideas for stocks to bonds. Again, both reasonable:
* Glide path (what TDFs tend to use): you ramp up the percentage of bonds as the target goal approaches (such as retirement). The ramp may continue for a few years later if it is for something like retirement, but not for things like a 529 or investing for a house for example (since you'd be pulling out either all at once or in a much shorter time period).
* Bond tent: You ramp up bonds as a percentage shortly before retirement and keep that for a few years after, then reverse course to go heavier into stocks (other websites can explain better than I can, but the idea being that the biggest risk to running out of money may be the years closest to retirement: a bad market then can really screw up your plans).

You don't need BND at your age and with that portfolio size.
VTI/VXUS is good. VT is basically the same thing in one ETF if you want to get even simpler.

> For starters, can someone give an explanation of why these three stocks are seen as such powerhouses?
It's because it's not three stocks, it's over 10,000 globally distributed individual companies, and the US aggregate bond market.
[New to /r/Bogleheads? Read this first!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/comments/1l6j6tj/new_to_rbogleheads_read_this_first/)
> I have about 7k in savings that I'm hoping to invest
If you have earned income, then contributing to a Roth IRA would be a very tax advantaged way to invest.
> and I want to keep things as simple as possible.
Then passive indexing, [three-fund style portfolio](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio)
of total US + total International + Bonds is a great choice.
> I've seen a lot of people saying 80% VTI + 20% VXUS is the way to go
Perfectly reasonable at age 20. The thing is: there are several other *reasonable* combinations. The important thing is to select something reasonable and stick with it.
> but I'm also seeing some people recommending splashing in BND. Considering my age, what would you recommend I do?
[100% stocks doesn't have to be the default portfolio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ONC1E8aKXc&t=520s), so [give some consideration to bonds](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/comments/15drkxn/in_defense_of_in_defense_of_bonds/), just 10% bonds [reduces volatility without reducing returns much](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/17tv0a0/comment/k8zuy3b/).
I happen to think that when you have no idea what you're doing, copying a target date fund [glide path](https://institutional.vanguard.com/investment/strategies/tdf-glide-path.html) as a starting point for an asset allocation is a great choice. (or you could just use a target date fund directly).
90% VT + 10% BND, or 55% VTI + 35% VXUS + 10% BND, would be fantastic options.
>Also, what percentage of my paychecks should I contribute?
15% of income is the usual rule of thumb. More is great if you can (gives you more options in the future), but following the Personal Finance [wiki and flowchart](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics/) is a good general guide for handling money.
> And I assume that I want to keep the same overall ratio when investing that percentage?
Yes.

At 20 y/o you don't need BND. Even if you're running a 90/10 portfolio, the 10 should be emergency fund and cash equivalent. Life as a young person changes a lot, so it's good to have the more stable allocation here (if at all above the emergency fund) rather than getting half a percent more with IT treasuries. And I'm also camp VT and chill, but I'm not US based and have heard that VTI/VXUS might be a better option. Anywhere between 60% (market cap) and 80% (home bias) should be fine.
So yeah, I'd run emergency fund and up to 10% allocation in a HYSA or equivalent, the rest all in VT.

Is VTI + VXUS + BND the correct move for a 20y/o beginner investor? What ratio?

“Risk free” government bonds (represented by BND) have lost value when used to produce income. The only places you can find positive returns are assuming 100% of the yield is reinvested which doesn’t work because the yield is taxed.
Adding the entire pre-tax yield back to the bond fund over 5 years keeps it flat and makes it positive over 10 years but this isn’t a retirement question so taxes can’t be ignored. There are better bond funds when you reach into if you’re fine with higher fees and corporate bond exposure but this was a BND discussion.
My point of disliking bonds because they don’t hold their value remains UNLESS you’re in a 0% tax bracket and don’t need the yield they provide. Tax deferred compounded growth provided by things Vanguard doesn’t sell isn’t a bad thing.
NAV Price 5 years ago vs today…
BND: $85.90 vs $73.11 or -14.88%
Average yield is around 2.65% pretax
That same money in a Fixed Annuity yielding 2.65% pretax (which is lower than the average)
$100.00 vs $100.00 (Principal protected)
Compounded total yield is 29.89% pretax, 2.989% average because no taxes were paid and the same rate compounded.
BND is fine but it underperforms money markets and SGOV. You can put your clients in it if you want 🤷🏻‍♂️

Check out Lazy Portfolios at Bogleheads.org
The boglehead option you’ll ultimately be faced with are a one fund portfolio like a Target Date Fund, VTI/VXUS at market weight, or VT. If doing the latter, you’ll want to add BND when you get older, think mid 40s.
I don’t think you need an adviser on this…I’d recommend reading The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Bogle and The Simple Path to Wealth. Those two should help alongside the resources on this forum.