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Old 03-16-2021, 04:25 PM   #81
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It's worth remembering that the average financial advisor has a considerable outlay for expenses. AFAIK the typical budget looks something like this:
Yeah, birthday cards are a big part of it. I've got millions with Vanguard and Fidelity and never one damn birthday card.
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Old 03-16-2021, 04:31 PM   #82
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Yeah, birthday cards are a big part of it. I've got millions with Vanguard and Fidelity and never one damn birthday card.
Fidelity sends me a bd card. Maybe your jokes are too sophisticated for them.
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Old 03-16-2021, 04:32 PM   #83
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Fidelity sends me a bd card. Maybe your jokes are too sophisticated for them.
What? Now I'm jealous.
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Old 03-17-2021, 11:30 AM   #84
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How long a firm has been around is not necessarily a good indicator of the salesman you meet with. I once ate dinner with a Merril Lynch salesman FA in a nice neighborhood steak house. It was 7/8/2009 and he was out about $75 for the meal, I guess. He rambled the entire time, spoke of the many mistakes of the president, and told me about his portfolio that protected him from these mistakes.

In the 90 minutes I was able to ask one question, "What do you think of Cisco." His answer was that they were a good company, and paid a 3% dividend." Now that I look back, I realize he was a genius, knowing about Cisco's first dividend to be paid on Mar 29, 2011.

He admitted he was forced out of a local bank before ML. I also learned later he owned the local strip mall video store.

I'm sure your FA is much better, but had to tell of one experience I had.
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Old 03-17-2021, 11:36 AM   #85
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How long a firm has been around is not necessarily a good indicator of the salesman you meet with. ... I'm sure your FA is much better, but had to tell of one experience I had.
Again I'll recommend https://brokercheck.finra.org/ as an imperative first step. You'll get employment history, licensing, customer complaints, etc. One important check box is whether the individual is licensed to sell securities or is just insurance licensed.
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Old 03-17-2021, 11:48 AM   #86
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Yes indeed, he was in the FINRA site in 2009 when I checked him out for AARP. And then there's the rest of the story...
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Old 03-17-2021, 02:53 PM   #87
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He admitted he was forced out of a local bank before ML. I also learned later he owned the local strip mall video store.

I'm sure your FA is much better, but had to tell of one experience I had.
Yeah, the guy I spoke to did not own a video store.
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Old 03-17-2021, 03:44 PM   #88
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Former FA here. I've worked for ML, Smith Barney, Fidelity, Schwab over a 25 year career.

IMHO, if you need advice and someone to talk to, stick to Vanguard PAS or Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium.

Everything else, really is just smoke & mirrors.
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Old 03-17-2021, 06:20 PM   #89
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Former FA here. I've worked for ML, Smith Barney, Fidelity, Schwab over a 25 year career.

IMHO, if you need advice and someone to talk to, stick to Vanguard PAS or Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium.

Everything else, really is just smoke & mirrors.


Thanks for adding to the discussion from your experienced perspective. There is clearly a market need for the service and it’s just a matter of keeping costs down, as these two programs you mentioned do well.
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Old 03-17-2021, 09:25 PM   #90
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I hate the guys that hide their AUM scheme by claiming “we do better when you do better”, which obscures the fact that
If your account loses money, they still get paid handsomely.
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Old 03-17-2021, 09:29 PM   #91
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I hate the guys that hide their AUM scheme by claiming “we do better when you do better”, which obscures the fact that
If your account loses money, they still get paid handsomely.
They merely forgot to mention that "we do fine when you do worse, too."
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Old 03-18-2021, 04:50 AM   #92
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Former FA here. I've worked for ML, Smith Barney, Fidelity, Schwab over a 25 year career.

IMHO, if you need advice and someone to talk to, stick to Vanguard PAS or Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium.

Everything else, really is just smoke & mirrors.
And there you have it from the horse's mouth.
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Old 03-18-2021, 08:27 AM   #93
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Sure. Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (VPAS) has its own proprietary software,.......
Markola, nice summary. Thank you.

For those that might be interested, here is a link to the Vanguard white paper on their dynamic retirement spending model.
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Old 03-18-2021, 08:38 AM   #94
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So I have a FA and have no problem with it. He is fee only.
So I hate managing money with the heat of 10 suns. my late husband handle all of it with my blessings. When he died we still had small children so I had to take over. Now imo I do not believe all the bogleheads that swear you could do it yourself with just reading a few books.
I brought every thing from the millionaire next door to rich dad poor whatever and every thing in between. lol, I probably could have retired early on all the books I brought and never finished.

I'm happy although now that I'm retiring and probably simplifying I'll probably cut down on the number of times I call him up.
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Old 03-18-2021, 08:40 AM   #95
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now that I'm retiring and probably simplifying I'll probably cut down on the number of times I call him up.
That's the key point. Simpler is just ... easier. Not to mention more understandable and less tricky to manage.
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Old 03-18-2021, 09:21 AM   #96
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So I have a FA and have no problem with it. ....
There is always a lot of FA bashing here, and IMO many of them deserve it. But there are good FAs and there are clients that need FAs. Here's a story:

DS has a (platonic) woman friend, call her Emily, whose mother died last year. Emily is in her 50s. For at least ten years prior, Emily lived in the basement apartment of mom's house and took care of mom 24x7. Prior to that she had worked as an aide in a nursing home. From time to time mom would give Emily money for groceries, for Emily's clothes, etc. but Emily never had any understanding about her mom's money. Emily typically shopped for clothes at Goodwill.

When mom died and the estate got sorted out there was stock portfolio that included $3/4M of 3M stock plus a rental house in LA. We don't know exactly but the total probably pushes $2M. Emily has no clue what to do with this money or with her formerly penurious lifestyle. She would be a juicy target for charlatans and hucksters.

Fortunately, DW and I were able to refer Emily to an FA firm that we know. The owner of that firm, an experience mom, has taken Emily's life under her wing, managing the money and coaching Emily on her financial and personal future. This is not a situation for a DIY or Boglehead scenario. The FA is providing huge value to Emily's life.
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Old 03-18-2021, 09:41 AM   #97
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There is always a lot of FA bashing here, and IMO many of them deserve it. But there are good FAs and there are clients that need FAs. Here's a story:

DS has a (platonic) woman friend, call her Emily, whose mother died last year. Emily is in her 50s. For at least ten years prior, Emily lived in the basement apartment of mom's house and took care of mom 24x7. Prior to that she had worked as an aide in a nursing home. From time to time mom would give Emily money for groceries, for Emily's clothes, etc. but Emily never had any understanding about her mom's money. Emily typically shopped for clothes at Goodwill.

When mom died and the estate got sorted out there was stock portfolio that included $3/4M of 3M stock plus a rental house in LA. We don't know exactly but the total probably pushes $2M. Emily has no clue what to do with this money or with her formerly penurious lifestyle. She would be a juicy target for charlatans and hucksters.

Fortunately, DW and I were able to refer Emily to an FA firm that we know. The owner of that firm, an experience mom, has taken Emily's life under her wing, managing the money and coaching Emily on her financial and personal future. This is not a situation for a DIY or Boglehead scenario. The FA is providing huge value to Emily's life.

Not minimizing what the FA does for Emily, as I stated, I used to provide those services myself but my point is Emily can have the same level of hand holding with a CFP and an index fund portfolio for a total cost of around 40bps using VPAS or SIP Premium. The only difference is that Schwab or Vanguard would meet virtually rather than in person with those lower cost services. To me, it's not a huge sacrifice given that Emily is probably paying the FA 150% more than those services.
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Old 03-18-2021, 09:43 AM   #98
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Emily was lucky to have the help of someone who could guide her to a financial advisor that was vetted by someone who knows what they are doing. What would have happened if you were not there to guide her and she ended up with some random person at Edward Jones?
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Old 03-18-2021, 09:51 AM   #99
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Yeah, the guy I spoke to did not own a video store.
Ok. We're at the anecdote level of thread development. Most responses prove nothing, but steam gets let off.

The FINRA site does have data points, but a clean sheet there does not guarantee anything.
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Old 03-18-2021, 09:56 AM   #100
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Just my 2 cents worth...

1.1% AUM on lets say 2.5M is $27,500 per year. You can hire someone by the hour to complete a plan for you that addresses all you questions and gives you good roadmap for a whole lot less. A 1.1% drag on my portfolio is not something I would want to voluntarily initiate. You can revisit as needed and pay for updates and you won't be seeing thousands coming out of your portfolio every quarter.

https://www.napfa.org/

Also, if I were to hire someone, for me, they would need to be a fiduciary.

I know Fidelity has some kind of advisors service available. As well, when I had some health issues, I turned over our portfolio to Vanguards PAS for a year at a cost of .3 of AUM while I focused on my health. This is what my wife will do when I shuffle off permanently.

If you can run FireCalc you can use Open Social Security and get a real good idea which way to go with that. https://opensocialsecurity.com/

Last, but not least; I can invest in a lot of education on retirement and finance for $10k plus a year.

Just my opinion.
One financial blogger offers a "find me a fee-only advisor" service:

https://adviceonlyfinancial.com/how-...d-advice-only? utm_source=thefinancebuff.com&utm_medium=referral& utm_campaign=post

I used the above service a few years ago when I found myself facing a particular financial quandary...was happy with the recommendations...all were ~$2000 for a one-off plan, IIRC.

My situation resolved itself before I needed to choose one, however, so I ended up not employing any of them.
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