Do you use a “wealth manager” or DIY?

[Anonymous]

I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

Sure it’s your money and you can spend it how you want but the question is whether it’s worth $25k a year or whatever to do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

Sure it’s your money and you can spend it how you want but the question is whether it’s worth $25k a year or whatever to do this.

I’m not the PP but at this level of assets the tax issues can get complicated and messing it up can cost $200K+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

Sure it’s your money and you can spend it how you want but the question is whether it’s worth $25k a year or whatever to do this.

I’m not the PP but at this level of assets the tax issues can get complicated and messing it up can cost $200K+.

Not PP either but a tax accountant costs way less than $25K per year too.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone used the Vanguard services? they are new and very reasonably priced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents DIYed and we continued DIYing for them once they could not do it themselves. My brother and I did a great job with the investments but in retrospect we made some sub-optimal decisions from a tax perspective that will cost us about $400K on a $6M estate. I will likely defer to experts once I retire for this reason. it just gets tricky!!!!

Can you say more about what happened? Was it RMD stuff? Have a friend dealing with that related to an inherited IRA, it's a bit of a mess to deal with, although the amounts are much smaller- $250k.

[Anonymous]

$5m. Still working. DIY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

Sure it’s your money and you can spend it how you want but the question is whether it’s worth $25k a year or whatever to do this.

I’m not the PP but at this level of assets the tax issues can get complicated and messing it up can cost $200K+.

I’m a little sceptical about what kind of messy tax issues you might run into that would cost you $200k+ but the choice isn’t between diy and paying an aum fee— it’s whether you want to pay $25k for advice because it’s “0.4%” or $5-10k for advice by writing a check to a tax/fin plan professional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

Sure it’s your money and you can spend it how you want but the question is whether it’s worth $25k a year or whatever to do this.

I’m not the PP but at this level of assets the tax issues can get complicated and messing it up can cost $200K+.

I’m a little sceptical about what kind of messy tax issues you might run into that would cost you $200k+ but the choice isn’t between diy and paying an aum fee— it’s whether you want to pay $25k for advice because it’s “0.4%” or $5-10k for advice by writing a check to a tax/fin plan professional.

Exactly. Should be pretty easy to pay someone for a review and consultation to devise a plan, maybe you create it once you enter retirement, and then do a review 7-10 years later- maybe 5 hours of work each time. If you know what you are doing generally, you just need a plan/instructions guided by someone who knows the tax issues. They don't need to manage the actual accounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone used the Vanguard services? they are new and very reasonably priced.

what is it called? i wasn't aware of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel confident in my ability to manage my own finances. But I often run into wealth managers at work events and they always offer their services. What exactly do they do that I’m not doing?

Depends how much money we are talking about. My investment portfolio is ~$7.5m and I am comfortable managing it myself. Now, it it were double that size, I may consider a wealth manager.

[Anonymous]

We use a couple of different wealth managers. We are retired so estate planning it’s important to us and we can’t do that on our own. The other is helpful on alternative investments such as private equity. I manage about 20% myself just to insure I keep my head in the game. If I was 40 with $2 million in investable assets I’d do it myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ($6M) use a financial planner who charges about 0.4% annually. There are some special services that he’s done, like setting up bond ladders for income, and advising on tax strategies. He also advises on insurance and setting up trusts. I could do all of it DIY in theory, but it’s not my area of expertise, and it’s nice to have a professional looking over our accounts every quarter.

Sure it’s your money and you can spend it how you want but the question is whether it’s worth $25k a year or whatever to do this.

I’m not the PP but at this level of assets the tax issues can get complicated and messing it up can cost $200K+.

But, you would have spent that much in 8 years! Or, hire a good accountant @$2-3K per year and an attorney to do your trust docs @$5K one time.

[Anonymous]

Even if they can improve your efficiencies with certain things like taxes, you have to calculate if their annual fee is low enough to justify it. If you’re halfway decent with math and know how to Google, you can DIY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DIY here. Tax strategy in later years PP said is a good point though. Getting the most out of your money does get complicated.

What age would that be? Pre-social security age or after?

For us, it's the RMD years.