Dave Ramsey's four-fund allocation model
Split a portfolio equally across Ramsey's four mutual-fund categories and see where current balances or new contributions differ from the 25% targets.
Dave Ramsey Reviewed Aug 6, 2026 Rule located in Ramsey Solutions, 2025 Portrait: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Self-hosted by JMM.
Put your numbers through the rule
The source establishes the rule. The values below belong to you, and the output is JMM's deterministic calculation.
Every field recalculates immediately. Changed values can be copied into a shareable URL.
- Current total
- $100,000
- New contribution
- $4,000
- Post-contribution total
- $104,000
A positive gap can receive new contributions; a negative gap is currently overweight relative to the four-way target.
Growth and income
- Current
- $32,000
- Target
- $26,000
- Gap
- -$6,000
Growth
- Current
- $26,000
- Target
- $26,000
- Gap
- $0
Aggressive growth
- Current
- $18,000
- Target
- $26,000
- Gap
- $8,000
International
- Current
- $24,000
- Target
- $26,000
- Gap
- $2,000
What the source says, and what the calculator adds
Source-supported ruleRamsey describes equal 25% allocations to growth and income, growth, aggressive growth, and international mutual-fund categories. 
JMM calculationJMM calculates target dollars, current drift, and how much of a new contribution can move underweight categories toward target. 
What changes the answer
Equal labels do not guarantee equal exposures
Fund categories can overlap. This calculator tests the stated allocation rule, not the underlying holdings of a particular fund.
Contributions can correct drift without selling
Directing new money to underweight categories can reduce rebalancing trades, although it may not fully restore target weights.
Four names, one exposure. This is the weakest rule in the Ramsey set.
Growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international are marketing categories, not asset classes. Nothing stops three of the four from holding the same US large-cap companies in slightly different weights, and in practice they usually do, which means the portfolio is far less diversified than the four-way split implies. The instruction also leaves out the two decisions that move outcomes most: bonds, and cost. Use this page to see the dollars the rule assigns, then check what the four funds actually hold before you believe the diversification.
Not the calculator’s limits. The rule’s.
The categories are not defined anywhere
No standards body owns these four labels. Two funds sold as aggressive growth can differ more from each other than either differs from a plain index fund, so the same rule produces very different portfolios.
There is no bond sleeve at any age
A four-way split across stock-fund categories is a 100% equity portfolio. That is a legitimate choice at 30 and a hard one to defend at 62, and the rule does not change with the age of the person following it.
What this model does not know
- The categories do not map cleanly to every retirement plan or fund taxonomy.
- This model does not choose securities or estimate returns.
- Tax and trading consequences of rebalancing are excluded.
Before you use the result
Is this the same as a four-fund index portfolio?
No. It models the four category names in the cited Ramsey source and does not assume specific indexes.
Does 25% mean equal risk?
No. Equal dollars across categories do not imply equal volatility or economic exposure.
The next question this page cannot answer
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Calculator Rebalancing calculator What restoring the four 25% weights actually costs in trades once the categories have drifted.
Open → -
Calculator Portfolio volatility calculator Tests the claim this page doubts: whether four equity categories that correlate closely are diversification or one exposure with four names.
Open → -
Ray Dalio, sourced rule All-Weather portfolio model The opposite construction, from a source that allocates by risk environment rather than by fund label.
Open →