How much money before you stop managing and hand off to a wealth management firm?

[Anonymous]

Never enough. We're at 20M+. We have not used the traditional diversification strategy and don't want to tussle with yet another moron who thinks he knows better.

[Anonymous]

Im OP and this is really where I am:

"you don't need to crowdsource this. You find it stressful. Hire an advisor."

It's not just the tax stuff. It's worrying about the market. It doesn't interest me enough. I'm someone who provides advice to people in my real job andI know that I'm at a point where I want help.

thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Im OP and this is really where I am:

"you don't need to crowdsource this. You find it stressful. Hire an advisor."

It's not just the tax stuff. It's worrying about the market. It doesn't interest me enough. I'm someone who provides advice to people in my real job andI know that I'm at a point where I want help.

thanks

You know yourself best. When looking for an advisor, look for a fiduciary and one that is hourly. If you go the AUM route you’re getting charged 30K per year out of the gate on 3M.

[Anonymous]

Portfolio size has little to do with it. You use an advisor when you recognize that you lack the knowledge, experience, and/or objectivity to optimally balance risk and reward while minimizing your tax liabilities. You also use an advisor before advancing age has a deleterious effect on your financial decision-making, a move which should help you avoid bad outcomes which result from impaired cognition, even if not at the level of actual dementia.

That said, there are advisors, and there are advisors, and selecting the right one for your needs is not as simple as just going along with the first pitch you listen to, or blindly adopting whoever your friends or family have been using. Costs and investment expenses, as well as returns, have a significant impact on your net returns over time, and advisors who create complex portfolios often increase the complexity and amount of your investment-related taxes with portfolios which can be complicated to unwind later if desired. Many, if not most, people can be well served by a low-cost robo-advisor or by a low-cost hybrid service like Vanguard's Personal Advisor Service. The publication "Robo Report" reports on robo advisor performance, and is worth subscribing to, since it's free.

https://www.condorcapital.com/the-robo-report/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: doing further research. The big breakthrough is at $10m when you qualify for private banking at places JP Morgan and CITI. That opens you up to more investment opportunities and tax, retirement advice

Do you really want private equity opportunities? I wouldn't at that level of NA. Just use Fidelity or Vanguard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: doing further research. The big breakthrough is at $10m when you qualify for private banking at places JP Morgan and CITI. That opens you up to more investment opportunities and tax, retirement advice

Do you really want private equity opportunities? I wouldn't at that level of NA. Just use Fidelity or Vanguard.

I'm not there yet because my portfolio isn't big enough to qualify. But yeah, if an advisor I trust makes a strong rec, i would certainly consider it. That's the whole point of getting help.

[Anonymous]

We have a lot of money and we use three firms for different reasons plus we DIY with Fidelity for about $15m. One firm is really good with estate planning but somewhat conservative. Another firm is more aggressive plus they provide counseling to our three adult children for almost no fee.
The last firm is really focused on alternative investments like private equity and venture investing. No way could we do that on our own.

[Anonymous]

We have about $11m excluding real estate, although about $5m is in retirement accounts so outside of what our financial advisor handles. We probably had around $2m outside retirement accounts when we started with him. We are financially savvy but don't have the time to study the market or think about tax strategies, so it's great to have someone doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had someone managing our money before we even hit $1 million. At about $2.5M I decided to do it on my own, then realized I wasn't actively managing anything--more just watching. My husband is completely uninterested in money, so I couldn't count on him.

A couple of years later I signed on with a wealth management firm that also manages my mother's money. While I hate the .08% fee, I love the personalized attention when it comes to taxes and retirement planning. And we're up quite a bit.

yep. And the firm has access to some funds that the general public does not.

DH got one long before he hit $1mil. I decided I was going to manage it on my own. His investments grew faster than mine. I just didn't have the time or energy to spend time on it. People who do that for a living do have the time.

We now have about $3.7mil with the firm. They've done well for us. Even my kids are using them, LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had someone managing our money before we even hit $1 million. At about $2.5M I decided to do it on my own, then realized I wasn't actively managing anything--more just watching. My husband is completely uninterested in money, so I couldn't count on him.

A couple of years later I signed on with a wealth management firm that also manages my mother's money. While I hate the .08% fee, I love the personalized attention when it comes to taxes and retirement planning. And we're up quite a bit.

Are you sure .08 percent is correct? Do you actually mean .80 percent?

If it's .08 percent, please say the name. Our extended immediate family has about twenty million collectively and our fee is .45 percent. It's supposed to be a lower percentage the higher you go in assets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had someone managing our money before we even hit $1 million. At about $2.5M I decided to do it on my own, then realized I wasn't actively managing anything--more just watching. My husband is completely uninterested in money, so I couldn't count on him.

A couple of years later I signed on with a wealth management firm that also manages my mother's money. While I hate the .08% fee, I love the personalized attention when it comes to taxes and retirement planning. And we're up quite a bit.

yep. And the firm has access to some funds that the general public does not.

DH got one long before he hit $1mil. I decided I was going to manage it on my own. His investments grew faster than mine. I just didn't have the time or energy to spend time on it. People who do that for a living do have the time.

We now have about $3.7mil with the firm. They've done well for us. Even my kids are using them, LOL.[/quote

Mea culpa. I said .08% when it is actually .8%. And we currently have $2.7M with the firm and growing fast. Our daughter, who has a much smaller portfolio, uses them also. I love that they're intimately familiar with my mother's estate, our estate and now our kids' accounts, and are taking all of that into account when advising us. It's not just money management--it's one-stop shopping for taxes, retirement, insurance, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had someone managing our money before we even hit $1 million. At about $2.5M I decided to do it on my own, then realized I wasn't actively managing anything--more just watching. My husband is completely uninterested in money, so I couldn't count on him.

A couple of years later I signed on with a wealth management firm that also manages my mother's money. While I hate the .08% fee, I love the personalized attention when it comes to taxes and retirement planning. And we're up quite a bit.

yep. And the firm has access to some funds that the general public does not.

DH got one long before he hit $1mil. I decided I was going to manage it on my own. His investments grew faster than mine. I just didn't have the time or energy to spend time on it. People who do that for a living do have the time.

We now have about $3.7mil with the firm. They've done well for us. Even my kids are using them, LOL.[/quote

Mea culpa. I said .08% when it is actually .8%. And we currently have $2.7M with the firm and growing fast. Our daughter, who has a much smaller portfolio, uses them also. I love that they're intimately familiar with my mother's estate, our estate and now our kids' accounts, and are taking all of that into account when advising us. It's not just money management--it's one-stop shopping for taxes, retirement, insurance, etc.

Mea culpa. I said .08% when it is actually .8%. And we currently have $2.7M with the firm and growing fast. Our daughter, who has a much smaller portfolio, uses them also. I love that they're intimately familiar with my mother's estate, our estate and now our kids' accounts, and are taking all of that into account when advising us. It's not just money management--it's one-stop shopping for taxes, retirement, insurance, etc.

[Anonymous]

.8 percent of 2.7 million is over $21,000 a year.
No way would I pay anyone that amount of money per year. What decisions are they making that are worth that?
I belong to the Bogle philosophy of buying and holding, long term, diversified mutual funds. It’s not rocket science. If I need specific advice, I can hire fee-only advisers for a per hour rate through the Garrett Planning Network
I did try a wealth manager for a while, but after a few years of paying them gobs of money while they did not do much of anything, I realized that I was losing a huge amount of money—because I was losing thousands in fees that should have been compounding as part of my investments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Im OP and this is really where I am:

"you don't need to crowdsource this. You find it stressful. Hire an advisor."

It's not just the tax stuff. It's worrying about the market. It doesn't interest me enough. I'm someone who provides advice to people in my real job andI know that I'm at a point where I want help.

thanks

You could get advice once a year for 1-2k and then do whatever they say. You don’t have to pay some percentage of your investments for it to be managed. That is throwing away money for zero reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At some point, managing my own money became more stressful than I want it to be. The big issue is taxes. Selling and facing capital gains and selling to take losses creates a lot anxiety. I have too much in U.S. equities etc. I don't want to worry about it any more. I'm at least 20 years from retirement and have about $8 m invested. Money came from a windfall legal settlement that has grown about percent in last four years. About half in index funds, but i took a beating in REITS offset by big tech wins.

With a $8m portfolio and advisor would charge you close to $80k a year.
Are you ok paying that much?

Do it yourself.