I feel like I should go learn some more. I'm not in a pure index fund, I'm really in VFORX (almost completely, I'm not too original nor sophisticated financially and don't try to pick my own stock picks these days except with my "lunch money" just for fun). Do you think something like VFORX is a bad option? It's actively managed, so the fees will be a little higher than a pure index fund, but it's Vanguard and the fees are still really low. And it has total market components in addition to bonds.
Active management in general is a poor idea. You'll get better risk adjusted returns by investing in total world equities (like VT). Check out Bogleheads to learn the basics. If you want to get more advanced, you can learn about factor investing as well, but VT is enough for the vast majority.
If you want to get intuition for why this works, this is a really fun and interesting video: https://youtu.be/TQuxVz52w2w
