Consolidating and having fewer funds/stocks/etc in portfolio

[PatrickA5]

One thing I WON'T do is condense to only one bank. I have two credit union accounts and one bank. I don't consider that excessive. There are too many chances of getting temporarily "locked out" of access like natural disaster, Covid, bank error, IRS error (ask me how I know.) YMMV

Actually, I have two bank accounts. A CMA at Fidelity is my "main" checking account. The B&M is a backup for the reason you stated above. We have enough money there to last a while.

 

[pjigar]

I have 3 fund portfolio! Rentals (I count them as a Bond Fund), VTSAX and BRK.B. Each have approximately even split i.e. 33%

 

[VanWinkle]

I just opened a Cash Management Account at Fidelity as my main bank account. So far I am very happy with the CMA account at Fidelity including
getting almost 5% on the checking account. I also keep a separate account for
both of our daily bills and spending linked to a money market account paying 4.5% at Truist Bank.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

I've been more focused on less accounts. I'm down to 9 and could consolidate a couple more if I really wanted to.

Joint checking, joint brokrage, my brokerage, my inherited Roth IRA, my tIRA, his and her Roth IRAs, his and her HSAs.

The HSAs will be gone in 10 years of so, as will inherited Roth IRA.

Only one common equity fund at this point (VTSAX), About 52 preferred stocks and 55 different brokered CDs and bonds. And one money market fund (SWVXX). The preferred stock portfolio is close to fully funded and after that will be set and forget other than reinvesting calls and maturities.

I might eventually simplify the 55 brokered CDs and bonds to a 7-rung target maturity bond ladder and a 7-rung Treasury ladder.

How does everyone keeps records of all assets and there moving parts?
Do you document every coupon payment, interest and divvy in a notebook or rely on electronic record keeping?

 

[aja8888]

How does everyone keeps records of all assets and there moving parts?
Do you document every coupon payment, interest and divvy in a notebook or rely on electronic record keeping?

I have my investment accounts at Schwab. They record all the interest, dividends, transactions, etc on the website in my accounts. I also get an email of any buy/sell transactions plus I can download monthly statements. If I need any paper record, I can download it. All the detail is in the statements.

 

[Exchme]

Anyone been doing this generally (either recently or at some point farther back)? I recently have...I didn't have a ton in the first place, but even then I guess old age kicking in maybe, but I don't have the interest or patience to track and/or otherwise muck around with a bunch of funds, so I've sold or swapped out some which either weren't going great anyway or didn't have a lot of money in them for others. Of course how many is too many is subjective. There is the "three-fund portfolio" train of thought, but to me that's a little too restrictive.

I think this is a really good idea. Just like we've been decluttering our belongings to make it easier for our future, less capable, selves and to ease the burden when someone else has to step in as we age or pass away, I think it's a good idea to declutter financial holdings too.

We used 2022 to partially clean up taxable, but there is still some stuff I no longer want to hold but don't want to take the capital gains on to get rid of. We did clean up our IRAs and Roths, so at least those will be simple.

Our big problem is the HSA. We've been collecting but not organizing receipts since 2019 and some of them have become unreadable, some are already lost, etc. The notion of trying to straighten this all out when more time has passed and we are much older is daunting. So we decided to organize and digitize everything we could find and put the scans on a cloud storage. Gobsmacked that in spite of not being able to find everything, we still came up with $58,000 worth of receipts - $14K of COBRA costs and $44K of medical/dental/eye care.

 

[Kings over Queens]

I've got perhaps a dozen funds across retirement, taxable and HSA, and I'd like to get it down to 6 or 7. Not sure I can or want to go to 3.

My CPA who's asked to manage my money tells me I don't have enough symbols and showed me a portfolio (funds of funds) with upwards of 30 holdings. Nope, thanks.

Another financial advisor who's vying for my business said something similar. "You're too concentrated in S&P funds and QQQ, I'd suggest (he listed almost a dozen things to diversify)" Nope. He actually said "I was shocked at how much QQQ you own." I smirked.

I've started identifying who's getting culled and will be down to a large concentration in S&P eft's, S&P mutuals, QQQ, one Money Market fund and for kicks I'd like to add a REIT to the stable.

 

[RetMD21]

I am working on JOMO joy of missing out based on this Harry Sit video. No chasing CD rates or credit card deals. Simplified accounts. I still have a lot of complexity in my taxable account but it is a work in progress.

 

[Souschef]

I have a small portion of my assets managed at JP Morgan. They had me in 26 different stocks.
I transferred my holdings to Fido, and am slowly pruning them as an RMD. Fido has a little thermometer next to each stock to show its present value compared to its high,
I am slowly selling the poorer performers as part of my RMD.

 

[tutan]

How does everyone keeps records of all assets and there moving parts?
Do you document every coupon payment, interest and divvy in a notebook or rely on electronic record keeping?

I use a Google Sheet to track all the accounts and holdings. The number of shares of each fund or stock is a snapshot from my last manual update, which I do every few months. So between updates, it is only an approximation but is good enough. Also I can quickly compare once in a while just the total dollar amounts between my sheet and the accounts to ensure the sheet is tracking closely.

 

[FiveDriver]

How does everyone keeps records of all assets and there moving parts?
Do you document every coupon payment, interest and divvy in a notebook or rely on electronic record keeping?

I print the Fidelity Portfolio Summary page on the first of the month. There's some white space to make notes as we go thru the month.

I generally check Fido online at the end of each week, taking a deep look at the Individual TOD, Trad and Rollover IRA details page. Fidelity provides multiple columns showing cost basis and current value etc. That's my routine, I'm sticking to it.

Has an International ETF ever outperformed the SP500 for any length of time ? Maybe one particular foreign county for a single year. But One year it's India, next year it's Argentina.....I would think a broad-based INTL dilutes profit gains. Doesn't the SPY have enough INTL exposure ??

 

[Koolau]

How does everyone keeps records of all assets and there moving parts?
Do you document every coupon payment, interest and divvy in a notebook or rely on electronic record keeping?

Once or twice a year, I draw a line and mark everything to market and do a NW calc. I ignore most of the details otherwise.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

I print the Fidelity Portfolio Summary page on the first of the month. There's some white space to make notes as we go thru the month.

I generally check Fido online at the end of each week, taking a deep look at the Individual TOD, Trad and Rollover IRA details page. Fidelity provides multiple columns showing cost basis and current value etc. That's my routine, I'm sticking to it.

I have my investment accounts at Schwab. They record all the interest, dividends, transactions, etc on the website in my accounts. I also get an email of any buy/sell transactions plus I can download monthly statements. If I need any paper record, I can download it. All the detail is in the statement

The reason for my early post is because I have a retired (83) family manner who was an accountant that saved ~60years of financial assets in many 3-ring notebooks. Many are neatly hand written recordings of every purchase from cds, bonds, mfs, 401K's, and IRA's.
Now that he is getting up in age (single, no kids), he wants me to help him disperse his assets to the family. I told him that I am not interested in being FPOA, but would help other family member if I can when time comes.

Do you think this could be much easier (after he meets his maker), if all financial business was done using on-line brokerage accounts or is hacking and data breach a concern??

 

[motley]

Nothing is foolproof, but if hacking was a concern, you'd be hearing A LOT MORE about it in the news. Online is light years easier.

 

[FiveDriver]

The reason for my early post is because I have a retired (83) family manner who was an accountant that saved ~60years of financial assets in many 3-ring notebooks. Many are neatly hand written recordings of every purchase from cds, bonds, mfs, 401K's, and IRA's.
Now that he is getting up in age (single, no kids), he wants me to help him disperse his assets to the family. I told him that I am not interested in being FPOA, but would help other family member if I can when time comes.

Do you think this could be much easier (after he meets his maker), if all financial business was done using on-line brokerage accounts or is hacking and data breach a concern??

I will only say that Fido has Voice Recognition and also 2-factor ID on their site. IMO, the hackers are looking for easier marks than that.

Your family member should be proud of his record keeping efforts. It must be fascinating to look back at how trades were done in 1960.

But comes the time to sort all that out.....you'll probably have big job. Just make sure all Beneficiaries are clearly named, and establish a new cost basis on these accounts.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

I will only say that Fido has Voice Recognition and also 2-factor ID on their site. IMO, the hackers are looking for easier marks than that.

Your family member should be proud of his record keeping efforts. It must be fascinating to look back at how trades were done in 1960.

But comes the time to sort all that out.....you'll probably have big job. Just make sure all Beneficiaries are clearly named, and establish a new cost basis on these accounts.

Thank again for the thoughtful responses.
My Uncle is a smart man who is stuck in the old ways of accounting and bookkeeping.
He showed me all of his notes and binders and felt he needs a bookkeeper.

He leans on me because he knows I am the only one in the family that manages my money confidently on the Internet.

Plus, we talk about the markets and economics as we have similar conservative views (retired, 67yr).

Further, I am his Nephew by marriage ( ~40 yrs), but there are 3 of his blood nieces and 1 nephew that he wishes to leave his life savings.
Presently, I offered to help but prefer that other family members take the lead.

Should I step up and be his FPOA which might cause friction in the family?
I think not as it is causing me stress thinking about his situation.

 

[FiveDriver]

In my humble opinion, you're going to have to discuss this with his nieces and nephew at some point in time. Do it sooner rather than later. Just be up front about your offer of help. Explain the Financial POA to them.

Just make sure all the Beneficiaries are clearly designated. Beneficiaries take precedence over a Last Will.

Good Luck with this my Friend. (PS -- I've been thru Glassboro -- that's a very pretty part of NJ).

 

[pb4uski]

How does everyone keeps records of all assets and there moving parts?
Do you document every coupon payment, interest and divvy in a notebook or rely on electronic record keeping?

I do, using Quicken. Most accounts are linked to the vendors and update automatically when I do a One-Step Update and Quicken retrieves all transactions for all accounts since the last update and then I review and accept them. In most cases Quicken suggests the category based on similar past transactions.

 

[pb4uski]

The reason for my early post is because I have a retired (83) family manner who was an accountant that saved ~60years of financial assets in many 3-ring notebooks. Many are neatly hand written recordings of every purchase from cds, bonds, mfs, 401K's, and IRA's.
Now that he is getting up in age (single, no kids), he wants me to help him disperse his assets to the family. I told him that I am not interested in being FPOA, but would help other family member if I can when time comes.

Do you think this could be much easier (after he meets his maker), if all financial business was done using on-line brokerage accounts or is hacking and data breach a concern??

Another retired CPA here. The only thing that is really important are his current holdings. Does he still have a 401k at 83? Is there any good reason for not rolling the 401k into his IRA?

I don't see hacking or data breach as being a concern.

I do keep pdfs of financial accounts at each year end and quarters for the current year.

 

[pb4uski]

Thank again for the thoughtful responses.
My Uncle is a smart man who is stuck in the old ways of accounting and bookkeeping.
He showed me all of his notes and binders and felt he needs a bookkeeper.

He leans on me because he knows I am the only one in the family that manages my money confidently on the Internet.

Plus, we talk about the markets and economics as we have similar conservative views (retired, 67yr).

Further, I am his Nephew by marriage ( ~40 yrs), but there are 3 of his blood nieces and 1 nephew that he wishes to leave his life savings.
Presently, I offered to help but prefer that other family members take the lead.

Should I step up and be his FPOA which might cause friction in the family?
I think not as it is causing me stress thinking about his situation.

As an alternative to FPOA, he could give you trading authority over your brokerage accounts. I have a friend who is computer phobic and not knowledgeable about finances and we set up his brokerage and IRA at Schwab and I have trading authority over his accounts. I can trade, transfer money back and forth to his local bank, do IRA withdrawals... everything that he could do. I talk with him before I do anything major and he has online access and receives account statements.

 

[TheWizard]

Going back to the OP's question about consolidating funds and accounts, I think there's a lot of questionable info going around.
My investments are held at two different companies: TIAA and Vanguard. I have ruffly eight different funds at Vanguard in my three usual accounts. Some of those funds are essentially duplicates: VOO and VFIAX, for example.

But let's suppose I had thrice as many different funds in my Vanguard accounts, 24 distinct ones.
Would that be a "problem"?
Answer: no, it most certainly would not!
Why? Because anyone with a basic education would be able to deal with my consolidated Vanguard accounts QUITE SIMPLY upon my demise.

Compare that to someone who puts the FDIC max ($250k?) into CDs at twelve or fifteen different banks. Could that be a problem upon his demise?
Quite possibly, depending on where all the banks were located.

So please let's focus on real issues and not imaginary ones...

 

[motley]

um......k

 

[easysurfer]

Funny as I was just thinking the same thing about in the future with age losing interest. I currently use the 3 fund portfolio approach. But the thought of just getting an asset allocation fund to simplify eveny more kind of sounds appealing.

 

[motley]

Very. It's understandable, really; most of us as we age want things to be simpler. We're getting to those "I don't want to have to think as much" years. Plus we've been doing all this planning and putting all this effort into our lives so we could do just that - relax and not have to worry as much about things.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

As an alternative to FPOA, he could give you trading authority over your brokerage accounts. I have a friend who is computer phobic and not knowledgeable about finances and we set up his brokerage and IRA at Schwab and I have trading authority over his accounts. I can trade, transfer money back and forth to his local bank, do IRA withdrawals... everything that he could do. I talk with him before I do anything major and he has online access and receives account statements.

Thank you for the helpful thoughts. I will try to convince him that for simplicity this can be a reasonable option, where he and the FPOA can have online access and receive account statements. This would be an easier way of figuring out all assets compared to rifling through ~60 years of financial notebooks.
Yes pb, he still has 401k's at 83.

pb asked, was there any good reason why he did not roll the 401k's into his IRA?
I can only say that he is an older gentleman who is extremely careful and electronically challenged. He never relied or trusted using a computer and does not own a cell phone.