Avoiding short term gains on stock sell

More of a US tax only question. Leading up to hopefully moving in a few months....I continue to try to get hold of more cash.
1. Planning on selling all of my Vanguard Total stock after the first of the year ($114k at the moment), about $21K LT gains but about $3k ST gains. Is there a way to sell only the LT gains ($111K total instead of $114K)?...or will I just have to suck it up and sell it all without being able to pick out the ST gains?

Just doing some more juggling of numbers tonight. Can't help but wonder if it would be better not to sell these stocks at the first of the year and just PLAN on renting for a couple of years. You can get a very acceptable (to us) 2-3 bedroom near Huddersfield for 550 Pounds a month. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-47684815.html

When you sell shares from VG funds where you are using the average cost method they sell the oldest shares first.  If you have held a fund that has had the dividends and cap gains reinvested, then you can look back at your transactions and see when those dividends were reinvested and if it is less than a year they will be short term.

e.g. you may find that your fund reinvested dividends in December last year, in which they will be long term by January.  You may have some that reinvest in March last year so you sell most in January and the rest after the date the March dividends reinvested.

The house you posted looks exactly like the type of house we will be looking to rent in 2016, and is almost exactly the same rent we paid for a similar house in Guisborough in 2011.

You'll need to check the council tax rates and what band the house is in to get a better picture of the monthly costs.

You could avoid the ST capital gains if you don't reinvest your distributions for a while....but then you've missed out on the short term capital gain. Or you could identify specific shares if you use that accounting method. But it's a pain. Sometimes being as tax efficient as possible is just too much bother.

You could avoid the ST capital gains if you don't reinvest your distributions for a while....but then you've missed out on the short term capital gain. Or you could identify specific shares if you use that accounting method. But it's a pain. Sometimes being as tax efficient as possible is just too much bother.

Kind of what I am thinking. I will take a look today at what Durhamlad has mentioned...but it depends on whether it is simple or not. The only thing I will need to move then is the money I have in Vanguard Dividend Growth and move it into either the ETF version or slide it over into the Total stock ETF. Makes me almost completely stocks in Vanguard, but my TSP is mostly in the G fund so I would then be about 50-50 stocks/safe stuff overall. I'm just hoping the % rates start edging up again so I can move more into the G fund. My ROTH in Vanguard is in Moderate Growth and I am thinking about moving that over to the Dividend Growth ETF....need to look up a few things before I do that.