My wife and I are in our early 30's and hope to retire by 50. Currently, we have our house paid off ($325K) and another 600K ish in investments. We hope that by saving and living cheaply, that we will be able to spend an abundant amount of time with our children and grandchildren. In another month, my wife will be staying at home with our three year old. We are also expecting our second son very soon. With that said, I hope that our experiences of living cheaply and investing wisely may bring value to some of the memebers on this board. I'm sure that I will have many questions to those of you who have been there and done that. In fact, I already my first question:
Recently, I started consolidating our investments to make it easier to manage. Since Vanguard was the company managing my company's 401K, I decided to bring all of our assets over to them. I noticed on their website that they offer a complementary meeting and taylored plan by a CFP. When I called to arrange a meeting, I spoke with someone from their conceirge services. They were fairly nice, but I felt like I was being screened the whole time. (I was asked about other assets that I had. Was this the only money that I had for retirement, etc..) The thing that really upset me was that I was told that based on the information that I gave, the CFP would determine if I needed an entire plan or if they could just make some adjustments to my portfolio. This statement definately didn't make me feel like a valued customer. I clearly met the qualifications for a complementary plan, was requesting a comprehensive plan, yet it wasn't up to me (the customer) if I was going to receive one. The reason that I keep my money at Vanguard instead of a full brokerage service is because I don't like to be "sold" anything or told what to do.
I certainly don't want this to come across as me bashing Vanguard. I've always received excellent service from them. I obviously value them as a compnay because I've entrusted my investments to them. I'm just concerned about whether or not I should keep this appt. with their CFP. Do you guys think they are going to try and convince me to allow them to manage my money? What do they have to gain by offering this free service? Do you guys think it actually exists or is it a way to try and sell people on active acct management? Does anyone have any past experiences with them developing a plan?
Thanks.
Recently, I started consolidating our investments to make it easier to manage. Since Vanguard was the company managing my company's 401K, I decided to bring all of our assets over to them. I noticed on their website that they offer a complementary meeting and taylored plan by a CFP. When I called to arrange a meeting, I spoke with someone from their conceirge services. They were fairly nice, but I felt like I was being screened the whole time. (I was asked about other assets that I had. Was this the only money that I had for retirement, etc..) The thing that really upset me was that I was told that based on the information that I gave, the CFP would determine if I needed an entire plan or if they could just make some adjustments to my portfolio. This statement definately didn't make me feel like a valued customer. I clearly met the qualifications for a complementary plan, was requesting a comprehensive plan, yet it wasn't up to me (the customer) if I was going to receive one. The reason that I keep my money at Vanguard instead of a full brokerage service is because I don't like to be "sold" anything or told what to do.
I certainly don't want this to come across as me bashing Vanguard. I've always received excellent service from them. I obviously value them as a compnay because I've entrusted my investments to them. I'm just concerned about whether or not I should keep this appt. with their CFP. Do you guys think they are going to try and convince me to allow them to manage my money? What do they have to gain by offering this free service? Do you guys think it actually exists or is it a way to try and sell people on active acct management? Does anyone have any past experiences with them developing a plan?
Thanks.