Hi, RoBo here. I am a 56 yr old "recovering attorney." Married, with 2 boys (both of whom are almost through with school and pretty much provided for through school) and a recently informally "adopted" daughter we are putting through nursing school.
About 4 years ago I burned out big time on the practice after a challenging and rewarding career. Up until this time I was so busy with my practice that we relied upon a "Wealth Management" Financial Planner-- part of a big partnership in the Midwest. We live modestly and saved a lot of money. Our FP has a strong public accounting background, much more sophisticated than my accountant and over the years he made a lot of very worthwhile tax suggestions that for me justified his fees. Also our FP was instrumental in assuring us we had enough to retire, making the most conservative assumption. I have not regretted the decision and truly enjoy my new life. In the last year and one half my portfolio has taken a beating, though because of the balancing, it has been less than the market. I am less than impressed with their selection of investments by our FP and his firm and a recent analysis I did suggests I would have done as well if I just bought indexed funds while still maintaining the balancing, from which most of the benefit has come.
I am really tired of the huge fees I am paying, particularly when my portfolio is shrinking so dramatically. My FP makes no $ on any transactions but charges a semi-annual percentage of the assets that they manage. As an alternative, I have looked for a competent FP to do the balancing portion on an hourly fee basis, but I have been unable to locate anyone who is top-notch and is interested in hourly work.
I have spent some time looking at the site, TheRetiredInvestor.com, which appears to be a fairly sophisticated way to do this on my own on a regular basis, but I am unsure how realistic this is. I am impressed by what they say and the approach that they take, at least on the part that they give free access to, but there seems to be a curious absence of reviews by any users on the net? This makes me nervous.
Another consideration is my wife. She is a wonderful, bright, educated woman, but I have been unable to get her interested in learning about our finances. She is two years younger than I am and, combined with my own recently developed health problems, statistically she is quite likely to out live me. As my wife and I have discussed my dissatisfaction with my FP she has agreed to make a real effort to try to become more involved and educated. While I trust the honesty of my FP, I strongly believe him to have drunk the "kool-aid", and to uncritically and in a self-interested way, have accepted the methodology (and marketing) of his firm. I have found him lacking in objectivity about a number of issues. I would be concerned if after my death my wife had to rely upon him without any basis to critically question what he suggests—their have been several times where I have had to nix his suggestion either because they were terrible investments or because it appeared to me that he was trying to get even more dollars from us and have us tied to him even more than we are. On the other hand, I would feel better about her relying upon him, even at the exorbitant fees charged, than simply looking in the yellow pages for a broker.
I am profoundly ambivalent about whether I should continue to swallow what seem to me to be very excessive fees for my FP's services or 'jump off the cliff' and try to manage all of this myself and educate myself and my wife in the process. Any thoughts on all of this would be greatly appreciated. Particularly welcomed would be any specific advice about how to proceed in terms of finding a qualified hourly FP (if they exist?), ways to educate ourselves, and reasonable methodologies to follow.
About 4 years ago I burned out big time on the practice after a challenging and rewarding career. Up until this time I was so busy with my practice that we relied upon a "Wealth Management" Financial Planner-- part of a big partnership in the Midwest. We live modestly and saved a lot of money. Our FP has a strong public accounting background, much more sophisticated than my accountant and over the years he made a lot of very worthwhile tax suggestions that for me justified his fees. Also our FP was instrumental in assuring us we had enough to retire, making the most conservative assumption. I have not regretted the decision and truly enjoy my new life. In the last year and one half my portfolio has taken a beating, though because of the balancing, it has been less than the market. I am less than impressed with their selection of investments by our FP and his firm and a recent analysis I did suggests I would have done as well if I just bought indexed funds while still maintaining the balancing, from which most of the benefit has come.
I am really tired of the huge fees I am paying, particularly when my portfolio is shrinking so dramatically. My FP makes no $ on any transactions but charges a semi-annual percentage of the assets that they manage. As an alternative, I have looked for a competent FP to do the balancing portion on an hourly fee basis, but I have been unable to locate anyone who is top-notch and is interested in hourly work.
I have spent some time looking at the site, TheRetiredInvestor.com, which appears to be a fairly sophisticated way to do this on my own on a regular basis, but I am unsure how realistic this is. I am impressed by what they say and the approach that they take, at least on the part that they give free access to, but there seems to be a curious absence of reviews by any users on the net? This makes me nervous.
Another consideration is my wife. She is a wonderful, bright, educated woman, but I have been unable to get her interested in learning about our finances. She is two years younger than I am and, combined with my own recently developed health problems, statistically she is quite likely to out live me. As my wife and I have discussed my dissatisfaction with my FP she has agreed to make a real effort to try to become more involved and educated. While I trust the honesty of my FP, I strongly believe him to have drunk the "kool-aid", and to uncritically and in a self-interested way, have accepted the methodology (and marketing) of his firm. I have found him lacking in objectivity about a number of issues. I would be concerned if after my death my wife had to rely upon him without any basis to critically question what he suggests—their have been several times where I have had to nix his suggestion either because they were terrible investments or because it appeared to me that he was trying to get even more dollars from us and have us tied to him even more than we are. On the other hand, I would feel better about her relying upon him, even at the exorbitant fees charged, than simply looking in the yellow pages for a broker.
I am profoundly ambivalent about whether I should continue to swallow what seem to me to be very excessive fees for my FP's services or 'jump off the cliff' and try to manage all of this myself and educate myself and my wife in the process. Any thoughts on all of this would be greatly appreciated. Particularly welcomed would be any specific advice about how to proceed in terms of finding a qualified hourly FP (if they exist?), ways to educate ourselves, and reasonable methodologies to follow.