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.

Agree, we do our own investments but having a good estate attorney and tax advisor is where to spend. Not a stock broker or financial advisor.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, and she's worth it because I'm a worry wort. Also, their firm has access to investments that the public doesn't have access to.

That would raise my flags. Check the fund fees.

They get a flat .9%.

Is that the fund fees or the AUM?

aum

So do you know if those “investments that the public doesn’t have access to” have fees?

Of course they do. And according to most studies, around 90% of those funds will do worse than a broad based index fund.

Shrug... they've done well for us. So much so that we can retire early. I don't want to manage it. Too much work and anxiety inducing.

This is exactly how I feel. They do a good job, I am on track for retirement, they bring a lot more to the table than just putting my money in a fund.

We use a wealth planner. I tried to DIY for a couple of years and didn't think I was doing well. My mom uses him, too, so he has a full picture of the family finances. He's like a therapist and a money manager in one.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, and she's worth it because I'm a worry wort. Also, their firm has access to investments that the public doesn't have access to.

That would raise my flags. Check the fund fees.

They get a flat .9%.

Is that the fund fees or the AUM?

aum

So do you know if those “investments that the public doesn’t have access to” have fees?

Of course they do. And according to most studies, around 90% of those funds will do worse than a broad based index fund.

Shrug... they've done well for us. So much so that we can retire early. I don't want to manage it. Too much work and anxiety inducing.

That's a perfectly reasonable answer! The whole market has done well, you haven't stressed about it, maybe you paid higher fees than you otherwise would have, but that's fine if it's worth the less work and stress.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, and she's worth it because I'm a worry wort. Also, their firm has access to investments that the public doesn't have access to.

That would raise my flags. Check the fund fees.

They get a flat .9%.

Is that the fund fees or the AUM?

aum

So do you know if those “investments that the public doesn’t have access to” have fees?

Of course they do. And according to most studies, around 90% of those funds will do worse than a broad based index fund.

Shrug... they've done well for us. So much so that we can retire early. I don't want to manage it. Too much work and anxiety inducing.

Anonymous wrote:We switched to a wealth manager about a year ago, and our accounts are up 12%, which is better than we had done on our own.

If you had invested in index funds you would be up that much or more without paying the enormous fees.

Rather than hire a wealth manager, another option is to find a financial advisor to advise on how to invest and then do it yourself. You can pay a one time fee rather than a percentage of your assets.

Anonymous wrote:We switched to a wealth manager about a year ago, and our accounts are up 12%, which is better than we had done on our own.

+1 and I don't have to worry about managing it.

DH had switched to wealth manager before me for a year, and his investments grew faster than mine. So, I switched. Plus, I'm just too much of a worry wort and anxious to manage my own investments.

We switched to a wealth manager about a year ago, and our accounts are up 12%, which is better than we had done on our own.

Anonymous wrote:We have a financial advisor. I know we could probably do it ourselves with some discipline. However, I also know that I have enough other stuff going on that I will not be able to attend to it the way we should. I view it like hiring a handyman to fix stuff around the house. Could I do myself? Probably. Can they do it better and more efficiently? Almost certainly.

How much money are you spending on this each year?

Anonymous wrote:We have a financial advisor. I know we could probably do it ourselves with some discipline. However, I also know that I have enough other stuff going on that I will not be able to attend to it the way we should. I view it like hiring a handyman to fix stuff around the house. Could I do myself? Probably. Can they do it better and more efficiently? Almost certainly.

Putting money into an index fund takes maybe 90 seconds. The better analogy is to changing a light bulb, for which a handyman would be excessive.

We have a financial advisor. I know we could probably do it ourselves with some discipline. However, I also know that I have enough other stuff going on that I will not be able to attend to it the way we should. I view it like hiring a handyman to fix stuff around the house. Could I do myself? Probably. Can they do it better and more efficiently? Almost certainly.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, and she's worth it because I'm a worry wort. Also, their firm has access to investments that the public doesn't have access to.

That would raise my flags. Check the fund fees.

They get a flat .9%.

Is that the fund fees or the AUM?

aum

So do you know if those “investments that the public doesn’t have access to” have fees?

Of course they do. And according to most studies, around 90% of those funds will do worse than a broad based index fund.

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

Yes and we have been very happy with the service. They came recommended by my father-in-law and he’s very picky and was a CFO of a major company so I trust this recommendation.

DH and I split our assets, I put half in Vanguard and he put half with a private financial advisor. Honestly, the private guys are worthless. They take more of a percentage for less advice. Plus I like my Vanguard guy and feel like he wants to be helpful, unlike the private guys who just react to things we say. I'm sure this is very dependent on who you have. All I want is someone to really mitigate the tax consequences and sometimes come up with interesting investments. So far, I haven't found that guy.

Due to a cash need, We were forced to sell all our investments we had with a large WM company which hurt at the time bc of cap gains but was the best decision because we never went back and did our own index fund investing. Mid-30’s about 2.3 mil in investments/retirement and 1 mil in home equity. The 1.1% AUM used to kill me but no more!

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, and she's worth it because I'm a worry wort. Also, their firm has access to investments that the public doesn't have access to.

That would raise my flags. Check the fund fees.

They get a flat .9%.

Is that the fund fees or the AUM?

aum

So do you know if those “investments that the public doesn’t have access to” have fees?