Hello....I'll take all the help you got.

[PapaBear67]

glad I found this forum. Some great reads so far.

I am a 56yo and retired three years from a 30 year career in aerospace. Pulling a decent pension. Wife (55) still works and will do so until 60ish. Nice IRA tucked away and waiting for me at 59 1/2.

IRA is with a Private advisor. Charging me more than I want to pay...0.9% Looking to switch to Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, or PNC.

Looking forward to all the reading I have to do here.

 

[pb4uski]

Your first thing is to determine what overall asset allocation (AA) you are comfortable with. Most people here are in the 30/70 to 70/30 range (stocks/bonds).

Then look at where your AA is across all your accounts.

If you want simple, it can be as simple as buying a good balanced fund that reflect your AA or a few index funds. Or if you want something a bit more refined then it can get more complicated... its all up to you.

My weighted average expense ratio is 0.12%. If the funds your advisor has you in are average you are probably about 1% plus whatever the advisor charges.

 

[mystang52]

You won't find too many people here supporting the idea of having a Financial Advisor at 0.9% fee....and you seemed to answer it yourself by your comment that you're not happy with that deal, either. FWIW, I'm very happy with Vanguard and others here speak highly of Fidelity.
Beyond that, I'll just say welcome to the group.

 

[jabbahop]

Also - the more conservative your allocation (more bonds), the more an advisor fee drags overall returns.


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[DrRoy]

Definitely fire the advisor. I have been happy with Fidelity but the others may be fine also.

 

[rodi]

I agree with pb4uski... Pick an asset allocation. If you want a super simple approach - you can go with a single low fee active fund like Vanguard's Wellington or Wellesly. Or you can go with a couch potato portfolio. Put a chunk in a total stock index fund and put a chunk in a total bond index fund.

Or you can get a bit fancier... add in a chunk in an international index fund.

Once you have your money invested in your asset allocation the next step is to figure out your rebalancing plan. Some choose to rebalance 1x/year. Some choose to rebalance if it gets out of balance by 5% or more.

 

[pb4uski]

Better yet, since you are retired and have the time, write out an investment policy for your household and then assess where you are in relation to where you would like to be and implement it. Your investment policy would also address rebalancing, tax-efficiency, etc.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement

 

[petershk]

Agree.
I think of it this way.

If I have 1 million. I can expect it to generate 40K/year (swr). .9% is 9000 which means I'm giving my advisor roughly 1/4 of my income. That seems like too much. If I buy low cost funds/etfs I can get that to around 1500. Now if I believed an advisor could consistently overcome that gap I'd keep him... but then I'd assume he wouldn't need clients very long given his personal net worth would skyrocket

So I figure how much of my income I'm willing to spend on managing it (.3% or so including accountants, lawyers, insurance, fees, etc) and then try to stay within that.



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