I'm new here. 52 years old, female, south Jersey (don't hold it against me! Haha) I never cared about finances before, figured I was too stupid to understand it, so I'd let the "professionals" handle it. Well, what sparked my interest to dig started about a year ago. I have a severely handicapped son and was worried about his future. I figured whole life insurance was the way to go. Called my insurance guy, told him I wanted one million in whole life. I think at that point is when they started salivating looking back. He hooked me up with an "expert" in insurance for just such matters because his business associate has a severely handicapped son as well and understood what I was going through. After being trapped in their offices for almost three hours with them assuring me they were good Catholics who went to church every single day (I'm not kidding), they assured me the best they could do for me and the best thing I could do for my son was shell $80,000 for a $300,000 whole life policy. Why did I drive home scared to death and sick to my stomach and more worried after that visit than I ever had been? Note to all: Listen to your gut!
I decided to research insurance. Well, I guess you all know what I found out.
Then guy number one tries to get me to sign him on as my financial advisor and he's going to invest me in American Funds. I didn't do it.
Guy number two, number one's "friend," goes behind his back and tries to get me into American Funds as well because he says costs don't matter (told him I was thinking of Vanguard).
The two of them made me sick.
Here's the thing -- I inherited about $200,000 when my dad died and just did what I thought was the right thing. I invested it with Edward Jones. Guess what. Yes, American Funds.
I've been reading and reading and really educating myself now and I'm so disgusted with myself and all these financial experts I could just vomit.
Here's what I've found out. Tell me if I'm reading this correctly. My EJ acct is now worth about $245,000. Thank God only half is in American Funds. I looked up the fee schedule. After stealing the 5.75% load up front, if I am reading the fee schedule correctly, there is $600 annual base charge, PLUS 1.5% of the fair market value of assets under mgmt., which I calculated to be about $3675 since it is on the entire acct, not just the American Funds, PLUS once the acct reaches $250,000 there is an additional 2% dividend reinvestment fee! Tell me it ain't so. Are they really stealing that much from me? Have I truly been that ill-informed all this time? How do they sleep at night? Once I get my head together, I am going to have this acct transferred to Vanguard if that is possible. Somebody please say some words of consolation
I could go into a million details about all the shenanigans that have gone on with these three different "experts," but what's the use? You guys here already know how that ship sails.
I decided to research insurance. Well, I guess you all know what I found out.
Then guy number one tries to get me to sign him on as my financial advisor and he's going to invest me in American Funds. I didn't do it.
Guy number two, number one's "friend," goes behind his back and tries to get me into American Funds as well because he says costs don't matter (told him I was thinking of Vanguard).
The two of them made me sick.
Here's the thing -- I inherited about $200,000 when my dad died and just did what I thought was the right thing. I invested it with Edward Jones. Guess what. Yes, American Funds.
I've been reading and reading and really educating myself now and I'm so disgusted with myself and all these financial experts I could just vomit.
Here's what I've found out. Tell me if I'm reading this correctly. My EJ acct is now worth about $245,000. Thank God only half is in American Funds. I looked up the fee schedule. After stealing the 5.75% load up front, if I am reading the fee schedule correctly, there is $600 annual base charge, PLUS 1.5% of the fair market value of assets under mgmt., which I calculated to be about $3675 since it is on the entire acct, not just the American Funds, PLUS once the acct reaches $250,000 there is an additional 2% dividend reinvestment fee! Tell me it ain't so. Are they really stealing that much from me? Have I truly been that ill-informed all this time? How do they sleep at night? Once I get my head together, I am going to have this acct transferred to Vanguard if that is possible. Somebody please say some words of consolation
I could go into a million details about all the shenanigans that have gone on with these three different "experts," but what's the use? You guys here already know how that ship sails.