Am I overpaying my financial advisor?

[Anonymous]

OP, I hope you let us know how you resolve this.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

A. OP asked for recs.

B. I think you may be unfamiliar with how Atwood does business, a key feature of which is that they do not receive or store any client PII. So it’s true, three hours may sound like longer than it “should” take, but a lot of that is communicating about what is where now.

At the end, they have none of my data to lose, sell, or otherwise compromise, which I consider a major advantage.

In my case, I am planning for early retirement. Estate planning and insurance (perhaps these are what you mean when you say “what needs to be done takes more than three hours”?) have been done for a long time.

The first hour was on existing and future asset streams (retirement savings, house and mortgage, pension, SS as taken at various ages, health insurance, college).

Second hour was on modeling various scenarios (retirement dates, needed amounts to be spent on health care, etc). I have a fully disabled spouse (who also needs health insurance but will not qualify for Medicare when I do—see above) so budgeting for modifications to our home was part of this conversation.

Third hour was on asset allocation—IDK about Atwood generally, but Elizabeth Pennington specifically doesn’t recommend a “three-fund portfolio” in the traditional sense. Any money you will need close in goes to cash or equivalents (in my case, the G fund for the amount of money I will need in early-early retirement). Anything farther than 7-10 years out is in the market (two funds).

That third session could have been a half-hour, but in my case it included discussing pros and cons of rolling a large private employer 401k into TSP only, vs a combination of an IRA and the TSP.

My view is that what I got was well worth my $780. Note that this is dramatically less than OP is spending on fees in…a month. OP needs this and a basic Bogle book on index funds and that’s about it.

Have a nice day.

[Anonymous]

We pay our FA 0.85% on first $500K, 0.65 on next $500K and 0.5% on anything above that.

Our FA also does not charge us for what is in our 529s or MM/Cash/CDs, but rather only on the $8M+ in the actual investments.

Our FA is worth every penny of it. Sure I could do just several Index funds and hope to be diversified. But we are worth enough that we can take the risk with PE and other "riskier" ventures with some portions. They also know when to harvest tax losses and just ditch a fund/stock that isn't performing.
However, ours is very trustworthy, and typically has their own funds invested in most things they recommend. They also coordinate working with our Tax Advisors and estate planners as part of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We pay our FA 0.85% on first $500K, 0.65 on next $500K and 0.5% on anything above that.

Our FA also does not charge us for what is in our 529s or MM/Cash/CDs, but rather only on the $8M+ in the actual investments.

Our FA is worth every penny of it. Sure I could do just several Index funds and hope to be diversified. But we are worth enough that we can take the risk with PE and other "riskier" ventures with some portions. They also know when to harvest tax losses and just ditch a fund/stock that isn't performing.
However, ours is very trustworthy, and typically has their own funds invested in most things they recommend. They also coordinate working with our Tax Advisors and estate planners as part of this.

They're not worth the $30k+ you're paying them each year. I guess they earned it by selling you on stuff you don't need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

A. OP asked for recs.

B. I think you may be unfamiliar with how Atwood does business, a key feature of which is that they do not receive or store any client PII. So it’s true, three hours may sound like longer than it “should” take, but a lot of that is communicating about what is where now.

At the end, they have none of my data to lose, sell, or otherwise compromise, which I consider a major advantage.

In my case, I am planning for early retirement. Estate planning and insurance (perhaps these are what you mean when you say “what needs to be done takes more than three hours”?) have been done for a long time.

The first hour was on existing and future asset streams (retirement savings, house and mortgage, pension, SS as taken at various ages, health insurance, college).

Second hour was on modeling various scenarios (retirement dates, needed amounts to be spent on health care, etc). I have a fully disabled spouse (who also needs health insurance but will not qualify for Medicare when I do—see above) so budgeting for modifications to our home was part of this conversation.

Third hour was on asset allocation—IDK about Atwood generally, but Elizabeth Pennington specifically doesn’t recommend a “three-fund portfolio” in the traditional sense. Any money you will need close in goes to cash or equivalents (in my case, the G fund for the amount of money I will need in early-early retirement). Anything farther than 7-10 years out is in the market (two funds).

That third session could have been a half-hour, but in my case it included discussing pros and cons of rolling a large private employer 401k into TSP only, vs a combination of an IRA and the TSP.

My view is that what I got was well worth my $780. Note that this is dramatically less than OP is spending on fees in…a month. OP needs this and a basic Bogle book on index funds and that’s about it.

Have a nice day.

Retirement planning is an excellent example of where an advice-only financial advisor is a good investment. Many of the posters here are comfortable with their overall investment strategies, but retirement raises a set of issues that they haven't dealt with before and they can carry non-obvious tax implications.

I really don't understand the posters who think the only answer to a set of problems like this is to put their assets under management with a financial advisor who charges 1% of the portfolio annually for this service (or in OP's case 1.25%). That is fine if you are not comfortable with financial matters and want to outsource it all, but it is overkill for those who simply need a little advice for things like retirement choices.

PP, I am glad you were satisfied with Atwood. There are other advice only advisors, but they are hard to find, so it is useful for others to have at least one name to try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

A. OP asked for recs.

B. I think you may be unfamiliar with how Atwood does business, a key feature of which is that they do not receive or store any client PII. So it’s true, three hours may sound like longer than it “should” take, but a lot of that is communicating about what is where now.

At the end, they have none of my data to lose, sell, or otherwise compromise, which I consider a major advantage.

In my case, I am planning for early retirement. Estate planning and insurance (perhaps these are what you mean when you say “what needs to be done takes more than three hours”?) have been done for a long time.

The first hour was on existing and future asset streams (retirement savings, house and mortgage, pension, SS as taken at various ages, health insurance, college).

Second hour was on modeling various scenarios (retirement dates, needed amounts to be spent on health care, etc). I have a fully disabled spouse (who also needs health insurance but will not qualify for Medicare when I do—see above) so budgeting for modifications to our home was part of this conversation.

Third hour was on asset allocation—IDK about Atwood generally, but Elizabeth Pennington specifically doesn’t recommend a “three-fund portfolio” in the traditional sense. Any money you will need close in goes to cash or equivalents (in my case, the G fund for the amount of money I will need in early-early retirement). Anything farther than 7-10 years out is in the market (two funds).

That third session could have been a half-hour, but in my case it included discussing pros and cons of rolling a large private employer 401k into TSP only, vs a combination of an IRA and the TSP.

My view is that what I got was well worth my $780. Note that this is dramatically less than OP is spending on fees in…a month. OP needs this and a basic Bogle book on index funds and that’s about it.

Have a nice day.

Ask some questions, plug info into software, charge $780 for 3 hours work. Ugh, you got to be kidding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

A. OP asked for recs.

B. I think you may be unfamiliar with how Atwood does business, a key feature of which is that they do not receive or store any client PII. So it’s true, three hours may sound like longer than it “should” take, but a lot of that is communicating about what is where now.

At the end, they have none of my data to lose, sell, or otherwise compromise, which I consider a major advantage.

In my case, I am planning for early retirement. Estate planning and insurance (perhaps these are what you mean when you say “what needs to be done takes more than three hours”?) have been done for a long time.

The first hour was on existing and future asset streams (retirement savings, house and mortgage, pension, SS as taken at various ages, health insurance, college).

Second hour was on modeling various scenarios (retirement dates, needed amounts to be spent on health care, etc). I have a fully disabled spouse (who also needs health insurance but will not qualify for Medicare when I do—see above) so budgeting for modifications to our home was part of this conversation.

Third hour was on asset allocation—IDK about Atwood generally, but Elizabeth Pennington specifically doesn’t recommend a “three-fund portfolio” in the traditional sense. Any money you will need close in goes to cash or equivalents (in my case, the G fund for the amount of money I will need in early-early retirement). Anything farther than 7-10 years out is in the market (two funds).

That third session could have been a half-hour, but in my case it included discussing pros and cons of rolling a large private employer 401k into TSP only, vs a combination of an IRA and the TSP.

My view is that what I got was well worth my $780. Note that this is dramatically less than OP is spending on fees in…a month. OP needs this and a basic Bogle book on index funds and that’s about it.

Have a nice day.

Ask some questions, plug info into software, charge $780 for 3 hours work. Ugh, you got to be kidding.

Of course, one could do it oneself. There is software out there like New Retirement and Pralana Gold that would allow one to model out many of these questions. While the software probably only runs $100 or so, there is a learning curve, which can take many hours until you can get the proper output.

I wouldn't fault anyone for going the route of paying someone several hundred hours to do this for them. Paying AUM fees for this, however, I don't understand.

[Anonymous]

I would follow the advice of the best investor of all time.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022440582/planet-money-summer-school-2-index-funds-the-bet

[Anonymous]

most anti financial advisor people on here probably think they are smarter than they are.

"Markets are going to crash this year."

"We are due for the big one."

"Biden or Trump will end the world."

They probably sell and buy at the worst times. A FAs job is not to try and get you on the cover of Forbes, it's too prevent YOU from making stupid mistakes. That cost is intangible and not necessarily quantifiable.

We happily pay our advisor because they keep up from being emotional with money. The $25k we pay them is a lot but I don't know how I would have reacted without them. For all I care, my assets are at all time highs. Win win.

A good advisor will admit this and provide a ton of other value add service offerings. A bad advisor tries to sell their "outperformance"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:most anti financial advisor people on here probably think they are smarter than they are.

"Markets are going to crash this year."

"We are due for the big one."

"Biden or Trump will end the world."

They probably sell and buy at the worst times. A FAs job is not to try and get you on the cover of Forbes, it's too prevent YOU from making stupid mistakes. That cost is intangible and not necessarily quantifiable.

We happily pay our advisor because they keep up from being emotional with money. The $25k we pay them is a lot but I don't know how I would have reacted without them. For all I care, my assets are at all time highs. Win win.

A good advisor will admit this and provide a ton of other value add service offerings. A bad advisor tries to sell their "outperformance"

I would never use an AUM financial advisor. But I am also comfortable with finances and am not an investor who panics and deviates from the long-term plan.

A good AUM advisor is useful for those who are not knowledgeable or comfortable with financial matters or for those who are but are also as you put it "emotional with money." For those who are knowledgeable, comfortable, unemotional and enjoy putting in some time and effort, outsourcing financial management is not money well spent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

A. OP asked for recs.

B. I think you may be unfamiliar with how Atwood does business, a key feature of which is that they do not receive or store any client PII. So it’s true, three hours may sound like longer than it “should” take, but a lot of that is communicating about what is where now.

At the end, they have none of my data to lose, sell, or otherwise compromise, which I consider a major advantage.

In my case, I am planning for early retirement. Estate planning and insurance (perhaps these are what you mean when you say “what needs to be done takes more than three hours”?) have been done for a long time.

The first hour was on existing and future asset streams (retirement savings, house and mortgage, pension, SS as taken at various ages, health insurance, college).

Second hour was on modeling various scenarios (retirement dates, needed amounts to be spent on health care, etc). I have a fully disabled spouse (who also needs health insurance but will not qualify for Medicare when I do—see above) so budgeting for modifications to our home was part of this conversation.

Third hour was on asset allocation—IDK about Atwood generally, but Elizabeth Pennington specifically doesn’t recommend a “three-fund portfolio” in the traditional sense. Any money you will need close in goes to cash or equivalents (in my case, the G fund for the amount of money I will need in early-early retirement). Anything farther than 7-10 years out is in the market (two funds).

That third session could have been a half-hour, but in my case it included discussing pros and cons of rolling a large private employer 401k into TSP only, vs a combination of an IRA and the TSP.

My view is that what I got was well worth my $780. Note that this is dramatically less than OP is spending on fees in…a month. OP needs this and a basic Bogle book on index funds and that’s about it.

Have a nice day.

Ask some questions, plug info into software, charge $780 for 3 hours work. Ugh, you got to be kidding.

It's even worse then you think, skeptical friend! The software was an Excel sheet. The knowledge Elizabeth Pennington brought to the interaction was well worth the $780, just as my attorney's knowledge was worth the $2500 I paid them to draft documents. YMMV.

Again, have a good one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would follow the advice of the best investor of all time.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022440582/planet-money-summer-school-2-index-funds-the-bet

Don't have time to listen, but he has said he has advised his wife to put 90% into the S and P 500, and 10% into US treasuries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Been DIYing it since I was 19.

Yes, with a small child. Working, obviously.

NOT paying attention is the key. Set and forget.

OP, Atwood Financial are great. Elizabeth Pennington charges $260/hr and the core things you need are done in three hours.

Enough with the Atwood shilling. What needs to be done takes more than three hours. Picking a few funds takes 3 seconds. They are over charging for the 2 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

A. OP asked for recs.

B. I think you may be unfamiliar with how Atwood does business, a key feature of which is that they do not receive or store any client PII. So it’s true, three hours may sound like longer than it “should” take, but a lot of that is communicating about what is where now.

At the end, they have none of my data to lose, sell, or otherwise compromise, which I consider a major advantage.

In my case, I am planning for early retirement. Estate planning and insurance (perhaps these are what you mean when you say “what needs to be done takes more than three hours”?) have been done for a long time.

The first hour was on existing and future asset streams (retirement savings, house and mortgage, pension, SS as taken at various ages, health insurance, college).

Second hour was on modeling various scenarios (retirement dates, needed amounts to be spent on health care, etc). I have a fully disabled spouse (who also needs health insurance but will not qualify for Medicare when I do—see above) so budgeting for modifications to our home was part of this conversation.

Third hour was on asset allocation—IDK about Atwood generally, but Elizabeth Pennington specifically doesn’t recommend a “three-fund portfolio” in the traditional sense. Any money you will need close in goes to cash or equivalents (in my case, the G fund for the amount of money I will need in early-early retirement). Anything farther than 7-10 years out is in the market (two funds).

That third session could have been a half-hour, but in my case it included discussing pros and cons of rolling a large private employer 401k into TSP only, vs a combination of an IRA and the TSP.

My view is that what I got was well worth my $780. Note that this is dramatically less than OP is spending on fees in…a month. OP needs this and a basic Bogle book on index funds and that’s about it.

Have a nice day.

Ask some questions, plug info into software, charge $780 for 3 hours work. Ugh, you got to be kidding.

It's even worse then you think, skeptical friend! The software was an Excel sheet. The knowledge Elizabeth Pennington brought to the interaction was well worth the $780, just as my attorney's knowledge was worth the $2500 I paid them to draft documents. YMMV.

Again, have a good one.

What did you learn during the meeting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:most anti financial advisor people on here probably think they are smarter than they are.

"Markets are going to crash this year."

"We are due for the big one."

"Biden or Trump will end the world."

They probably sell and buy at the worst times. A FAs job is not to try and get you on the cover of Forbes, it's too prevent YOU from making stupid mistakes. That cost is intangible and not necessarily quantifiable.

We happily pay our advisor because they keep up from being emotional with money. The $25k we pay them is a lot but I don't know how I would have reacted without them. For all I care, my assets are at all time highs. Win win.

A good advisor will admit this and provide a ton of other value add service offerings. A bad advisor tries to sell their "outperformance"

What an odd straw man argument. Most of the people here giving detailed info on how to move away from the FA are specifically saying "put your money into 1-3 index funds and then don't touch it".

But I do agree with you that the best function of an FA for anyone with under say $5 million in assets is exactly what you say- to prevent dumb mistakes. But in this case, as in many, the FA is mostly putting the OPs money in funds that are suboptimal and charge ridiculously high fees, most likely to earn kickbacks from the funds, on top of their onerous 1.25% management fee.