Anonymous wrote:Schwab offers the same retirement planning software to its customers for free that professional advisors charge you $5K for.

Which software is this? How to access on Schwab site?

Anonymous wrote:A close family member of mine is a financial planner. I have no idea why anyone would ever use a financial planner. It boggles the mind. I don't care how rich you are. All this information is free. And you can practically run a financial firm using just free tools through your standard big firm online.

You have no idea why someone would use a planner?

All the information to do practically anything is now available for free on the internet, and yet, many people outsource many things to professionals in order to lighten their own loads, simplify their lives and ensure they get the best result. Not everyone is comfortable managing money, nor does everyone have the time to dedicate to it. Not only does an advisor manage your portfolio, s/he helps manage your emotions. All you have to do is check the posts here from earlier this year as everyone melted down about markets, tariffs and Trump. Emotional investment decisions made then have cost them big time, as markets recovered and continue to march upward despite the financial media sounding alarms.

Yes, managing your money on your own is a valid option, but so is hiring a professional.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I use one, I paid about $2500 the first year and then pay about $500-$1000 per year to check up. He's great about answering quick questions over email in between. I don't have him manage money, just evaluate the funds and allocations in my investment accounts.

Whoever you use, you want a fee-only fiduciary. The fiduciary part is key!

we had this but our guy retired about 5 years ago. we've had zero luck finding a similar set up. and dcum never divulges any fee only advisor recommendations

any recommendations?

Schwab offers the same retirement planning software to its customers for free that professional advisors charge you $5K for.

1% a year paid in management fees basically doubles the amount of time it will take your investments to double. So if your money would have doubled in 10 years, instead it won't double for 20 years.

I am hung up on the idea of checking your investment balance weekly -- why? That sounds like a make-work for the planner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it to manage a few million dollars on your own? Get a good accountant for tax purposes. Get an app to run retirement scenarios.

Any you suggest?

DP. For a quick and dirty calculator you can try Schwab’s free calculator.

For an easy to use but still sophisticated calculator that shows its calculations you can use cfiresim.

But my favorite might be the TPAW planner

We use Schwab and have a planner through our plan - I think it ultimately costs us around $1000 a year.

Anonymous wrote:I use one, I paid about $2500 the first year and then pay about $500-$1000 per year to check up. He's great about answering quick questions over email in between. I don't have him manage money, just evaluate the funds and allocations in my investment accounts.

Whoever you use, you want a fee-only fiduciary. The fiduciary part is key!

we had this but our guy retired about 5 years ago. we've had zero luck finding a similar set up. and dcum never divulges any fee only advisor recommendations

Anonymous wrote:A close family member of mine is a financial planner. I have no idea why anyone would ever use a financial planner. It boggles the mind. I don't care how rich you are. All this information is free. And you can practically run a financial firm using just free tools through your standard big firm online.

A close family member of mine is an accountant. I have no idea why anyone would ever use an accountant. It boggles the mind. I don't care how rich you are. All this information is free. And you can practically run an accounting firm using just free tools through your standard big firm online.

Anonymous wrote:I use one, I paid about $2500 the first year and then pay about $500-$1000 per year to check up. He's great about answering quick questions over email in between. I don't have him manage money, just evaluate the funds and allocations in my investment accounts.

Whoever you use, you want a fee-only fiduciary. The fiduciary part is key!

How did you go about finding yours?

Anonymous wrote:I use one, I paid about $2500 the first year and then pay about $500-$1000 per year to check up. He's great about answering quick questions over email in between. I don't have him manage money, just evaluate the funds and allocations in my investment accounts.

Whoever you use, you want a fee-only fiduciary. The fiduciary part is key!

This is how you do it. Advisors charging a percentage of your assets are generally a big rip-off. The only exception I can think of is Vanguard PAS. And you have to be dumber than a box of rocks if you think that Chatgpt is a replacent for an advisor or someone with actual knowledge.

It isn't brain surgery anymore, there is a lot of investing/financial info on the internet. And now with AI, you can ask Chatgpt if Roth conversions makes sense for you, after giving it your particulars. And it will run scenarios for you on the conversion strategy. That is just one example. But if one doesn't have the time or interest, pay someone a 1% fee to get your accts set up. And you can transfer accts to another firm after a time frame.

A close family member of mine is a financial planner. I have no idea why anyone would ever use a financial planner. It boggles the mind. I don't care how rich you are. All this information is free. And you can practically run a financial firm using just free tools through your standard big firm online.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We don't use one. We read Bogle's book, read Bogleheads online, and put our savings and investments in low cost stock index funds. [/quote]

What type of index funds? S&P 500? International large cap?[/quote]

We always avoid international to avoid exchange rate risks.

Most funds are in low-cost S&P500 index. A little in Extended Market Index Fund. We use Vanguard when we have a choice, because they have consistently low fees.

401(k) uses Fidelity, so that money is in Fidelity's S&P500 index fund. Usually this also is low cost, but watch out for the 401(k) fees.

Also, we do not try to "time" the market. We don't trade funds; we mostly avoid watching their value week to week. We just let things compound.

(For any Feds reading, the TSP C-fund is a very low cost S&P500 index fund.)