Am I overpaying my financial advisor?

[Anonymous]

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.

There is no reason for someone in PP's situation to have to do ongoing research and watching and managing of their portfolio. Spend a few hours with a plan-only advisor to come up with a long run asset allocation. Vast majority of people can accomplish that with 3 funds or ETFs (total stock market, total international and total bond). Basically you are just deciding on what percentages to put into each. That's a one time decision, and maybe it becomes more conservative over time. That's why many people go into target retirement funds, because it automates all of this.

After that is decided, map out how to get there (more complicated for OP because of having to move accounts, sell holdings, tax implications, etc).

After that initial work, you really shouldn't be touching anything except maybe a yearly exercise where you rebalance to make sure you are hitting your target allocations. Again this is why target retirement funds are a good option for.many people, because they do this automatically.

The vast majority of people shouldn't be consistently researching or watching their portfolio. It almost always induces bad trades which end up costing you money long-term and induce higher taxes.

We are talking maybe 3 hours of getting documents and sitting down with an advisor. Then probably an hour here and there for a few months to execute the transition plan. After that like an hour a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

All money market funds are like cash so don't worry about finding the same fund at Schwab. Their unit value doesn't change and any income is paid out as interest. When you do move, it's almost like moving cash.

[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.

Op here. I do work and no, I don’t have time to routinely manage it, but I think putting new funds in an S&P index fund or something similar would be more beneficial over the long term and I won’t be paying $10k+ a year in just fees (especially since we only have $750k).

This is the beauty of index funds. You don't need to manage them if you are investing for the long-run.

You do need to decide on your asset allocation between stocks and bonds, though at OP's age if she doesn't need the funds for anything other than retirement she could go all equity for another 15 to 20 years. Aggressive? Yes, but not strongly so if it is all broadly-based index funds. She will have most of her money in taxable accounts, however, and that does does have long-term capital gains tax implications, so she may need some light tax advice towards the end of the year for that. She can call upon her CPA if need be.

The key to minimizing taxes is to look at turnover ratios of the various fund choices. Generally, the indexes have very low turnover rates. VOO for example is 2.1%. In contrast, the first fund she listed, CMNX, is a whopping 32.1%. So on top of the load fees and very high expense ratios, she likely was being saddled as well with capital gains.

[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.

Op here. I do work and no, I don’t have time to routinely manage it, but I think putting new funds in an S&P index fund or something similar would be more beneficial over the long term and I won’t be paying $10k+ a year in just fees (especially since we only have $750k).

This is the beauty of index funds. You don't need to manage them if you are investing for the long-run.

You do need to decide on your asset allocation between stocks and bonds, though at OP's age if she doesn't need the funds for anything other than retirement she could go all equity for another 15 to 20 years. Aggressive? Yes, but not strongly so if it is all broadly-based index funds. She will have most of her money in taxable accounts, however, and that does does have long-term capital gains tax implications, so she may need some light tax advice towards the end of the year for that. She can call upon her CPA if need be.

The key to minimizing taxes is to look at turnover ratios of the various fund choices. Generally, the indexes have very low turnover rates. VOO for example is 2.1%. In contrast, the first fund she listed, CMNX, is a whopping 32.1%. So on top of the load fees and very high expense ratios, she likely was being saddled as well with capital gains.

I think this is a little known fact of FA firm's managed funds. Capital gains tax within the fund.

[Anonymous]

We just parted ways from our financial advisor. We had a good experience but felt we could take it from here...and save on the fees.

We were on Schwab and stayed with Schwab, only now we're considered self-directed. The process of becoming self-directed was fairly easy but you should really do some home work. Not sure if this was suggested already but look at the Bogleheads forum. They are incredibly helpful...even if you're only reading.

Once you're comfortable with the process and you've set a path forward, it can be 'set it and let it'. Also, you'll need to lean on your tax accountant when its time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

This is bad advise. Timing the market is a fools game. Keep what you have a find an advisor on NAPFA.org. Most CPA's do not understand investing and are not long term tax planners. They mostly look at what happened already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

This is bad advise. Timing the market is a fools game. Keep what you have a find an advisor on NAPFA.org. Most CPA's do not understand investing and are not long term tax planners. They mostly look at what happened already.

Agreed. Only reason not to immediately sell all the shit funds and reinvest into good cheap index funds is to map out the tax planning. Once you do that, there is no reason to leave anything in cash beyond what you want to leave for access in the next year or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

This is bad advise. Timing the market is a fools game. Keep what you have a find an advisor on NAPFA.org. Most CPA's do not understand investing and are not long term tax planners. They mostly look at what happened already.

You are pushing NAPFA very hard. Many of those listed are fee only in that they take an assets under management fee. This is what has eaten into OP's returns.

Her CPA can advise for end of year tax harvesting. Over time, she may wish to have longer tern tax planning advice from an advice only financial planner. But she is still young, and most of these issues concern retirement planning.

I am not knocking the value of long-term tax planning at all. I wish I had had that much earlier to make me aware of things like RMDs, etc. (am way over-invested in my traditional 401k). But I don't see it as an immediate need for her, assuming she and her DH have basic things like life insurance well in hand. Her immediate need is to get out from under her current FA as soon as possible.

[Anonymous]

Wow. I mean, holy wow!! Anyone – hands down, anyone – that pays a financial advisor for anything is complete and total moron. Everything you need to know about investing is available for free in books, libraries, and online resources. DH is only an investment novice, but over the past 10 years, we’ve put a very $1K per month in our brokerage. Started with nothing, but now have $340K, $220K in capital gains.

We’ve beaten the S&P 500 for 10 years straight and didn’t need some Charlatan of an advisor. In 10 more years when we hit out 40s, we’ll be rocking $2.5M!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

This is bad advise. Timing the market is a fools game. Keep what you have a find an advisor on NAPFA.org. Most CPA's do not understand investing and are not long term tax planners. They mostly look at what happened already.

You are pushing NAPFA very hard. Many of those listed are fee only in that they take an assets under management fee. This is what has eaten into OP's returns.

Her CPA can advise for end of year tax harvesting. Over time, she may wish to have longer tern tax planning advice from an advice only financial planner. But she is still young, and most of these issues concern retirement planning.

I am not knocking the value of long-term tax planning at all. I wish I had had that much earlier to make me aware of things like RMDs, etc. (am way over-invested in my traditional 401k). But I don't see it as an immediate need for her, assuming she and her DH have basic things like life insurance well in hand. Her immediate need is to get out from under her current FA as soon as possible.

All NAPFA members are fee only. The fee structure is not what did them in. They dealt with a salesperson that put them in crappy investments - see Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Edward Jones, and the like. You don't want your CPA involved in year end tax harvesting, they do not do long term investment management.

And you are pushing your advice only friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

This is bad advise. Timing the market is a fools game. Keep what you have a find an advisor on NAPFA.org. Most CPA's do not understand investing and are not long term tax planners. They mostly look at what happened already.

You are pushing NAPFA very hard. Many of those listed are fee only in that they take an assets under management fee. This is what has eaten into OP's returns.

Her CPA can advise for end of year tax harvesting. Over time, she may wish to have longer tern tax planning advice from an advice only financial planner. But she is still young, and most of these issues concern retirement planning.

I am not knocking the value of long-term tax planning at all. I wish I had had that much earlier to make me aware of things like RMDs, etc. (am way over-invested in my traditional 401k). But I don't see it as an immediate need for her, assuming she and her DH have basic things like life insurance well in hand. Her immediate need is to get out from under her current FA as soon as possible.

All NAPFA members are fee only. The fee structure is not what did them in. They dealt with a salesperson that put them in crappy investments - see Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Edward Jones, and the like. You don't want your CPA involved in year end tax harvesting, they do not do long term investment management.

And you are pushing your advice only friend.

I went to look for a fee-only advisor through NAPFA a couple of years ago. What I needed was tax related advice. I called several and all made their money through assets under management fees. Sorry, I am simply not paying those as I can manage my investments.

Tens of thousands of dollars a year for AUM to me is money down the drain. But fine if it is worth it to you.

[Anonymous]

If I were OP I would start by posting on bogleheads and explaining the situation and ask for advice. That site is full of people who were being ripped off by expensive advisors but learned how to move to cheap self-directed plans.

The only slightly complicated part of this is extracting yourself from this advisor and portfolio. Managing it yourself is super easy. Just go for something like thd bogleheads-recommended 3-fund portfolio and rebalance once a year.

I suspect getting out of this is easier than you think. Once you have everything self -managed in Wells Fargo you can probably switch much of the portfolio to Schwab or Fidelity without selling anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I mean, holy wow!! Anyone – hands down, anyone – that pays a financial advisor for anything is complete and total moron. Everything you need to know about investing is available for free in books, libraries, and online resources. DH is only an investment novice, but over the past 10 years, we’ve put a very $1K per month in our brokerage. Started with nothing, but now have $340K, $220K in capital gains.

We’ve beaten the S&P 500 for 10 years straight and didn’t need some Charlatan of an advisor. In 10 more years when we hit out 40s, we’ll be rocking $2.5M!

Sounds like you're so good at investing, you should quit your day job and become an investor full-time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, you're paying over $10,000 a year for investment results that are worse than if you just put everything in index funds. Why are you even talking about trying to talk them down so you're only spending $6,0000 a year to get worse results than you can get yourself?

So.. your risk tolerance is index funds? Which index?

For example, the S&P 500 was down 18% in 2022. Some people don't have that level of risk tolerance.

There’s only one that matters…VTSAX and chill. Pay your monthly bills and then plow whatever’s left over into VTSAX without fail. There’s simply no need to ever look at your account balance if you’re consistent, only to check for a tax loss harvesting opportunity on a really bad day or near the end of December.. You can thank me later.

VTSAX was down 19% in 2022. I realize markets have ups and downs, but if you ask a lot of people if they are willing to invest in an investment that can lose up 20% a year, many will say they don't have that level of risk appetite.

That 19 % temporary dip had no effect on anyone who didn't move their entire portfolio from cash into that fund in 2021, while also being retired and never adding more to it in future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.

This is bad advise. Timing the market is a fools game. Keep what you have a find an advisor on NAPFA.org. Most CPA's do not understand investing and are not long term tax planners. They mostly look at what happened already.

You are pushing NAPFA very hard. Many of those listed are fee only in that they take an assets under management fee. This is what has eaten into OP's returns.

Her CPA can advise for end of year tax harvesting. Over time, she may wish to have longer tern tax planning advice from an advice only financial planner. But she is still young, and most of these issues concern retirement planning.

I am not knocking the value of long-term tax planning at all. I wish I had had that much earlier to make me aware of things like RMDs, etc. (am way over-invested in my traditional 401k). But I don't see it as an immediate need for her, assuming she and her DH have basic things like life insurance well in hand. Her immediate need is to get out from under her current FA as soon as possible.

All NAPFA members are fee only. The fee structure is not what did them in. They dealt with a salesperson that put them in crappy investments - see Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Edward Jones, and the like. You don't want your CPA involved in year end tax harvesting, they do not do long term investment management.

And you are pushing your advice only friend.

I went to look for a fee-only advisor through NAPFA a couple of years ago. What I needed was tax related advice. I called several and all made their money through assets under management fees. Sorry, I am simply not paying those as I can manage my investments.

Tens of thousands of dollars a year for AUM to me is money down the drain. But fine if it is worth it to you.

Obviously you can not manage your investments. Tax advise is part of the management of your investments. Tax advise is tied to your estate plan, investments, what retirement plan you take, insurance , 529 plans, home repairs, college planning, and on it goes.

You just didn't look hard enough to find an advisor that includes tax planning. Next time look at their websites. This is not difficult.