tmm99
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 15, 2008
- Messages
- 5,233
What I did recently was to sign up for PlanVision. It was cheap (around $260 in 2023. It looks like it's $299 now, plus $8/mo after one year.) I signed up for a cross-border (Canada/US) fee-only CFP for $400/mo with a one-year commitment ($4,800) a year ago, and he was useless. (I asked the contract to be terminated earlier, at the 6 month-mark, and he agreed so I was glad about that.) PlanVision is much cheaper, and for me, it's definitely worth it.
I recommend that you may give PlanVision a try although I haven't utilized their service much yet (been too busy/too lazy) because I was pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness of the founder Mark Zoril. They use eMoney and you need to go through their instruction videos and enter all your information the way Mark wants it - I believe this tool is the same tool Fidelity provides on their website. I could link most of my accounts except for my Canadian accounts but I could still specify holdings in my Canadian brokerage firms so the values would update automatically. (The videos showed how to do all that.) Interestingly, Mark Zoril is the founder and he's the person who has responded to me every time. He even followed up on my to-do list asking for updates. I was amazed!
Anyway, once I was done, I let them know and they tweaked my SS values, changed the spending models per my request (I wanted to use my 401K before Roth IRA) and they asked me to set up an initial meeting after I sent over what I wanted to know. Mark (via online meeting) was succinct, knew exactly what I wanted and made appropriate recommendations. I had a 30-minute consult after that and we went over some other things. He records all our meetings and sends them to me. Any subsequent questions I emailed, he responded very quickly in a video format. His asset allocation recommendations were very very basic stuff which I wanted (only a few for each account I had) and I think that's his style anyway, from his videos I've watched. I imagine I could utilize him more, but I have been side-tracked with other things, and I haven't. He has already done much more than what I paid for IMHO.
My advice is to utilize someone like that that is much cheaper first and see where you may want to go next. I've used a fee-only CFP decades ago and I found him helpful because I knew almost nothing then. It's hard to pay $4,800 (for example) for mediocre advice at this point, as I know a whole lot more now and not many people would look/sound brilliant.
I recommend that you may give PlanVision a try although I haven't utilized their service much yet (been too busy/too lazy) because I was pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness of the founder Mark Zoril. They use eMoney and you need to go through their instruction videos and enter all your information the way Mark wants it - I believe this tool is the same tool Fidelity provides on their website. I could link most of my accounts except for my Canadian accounts but I could still specify holdings in my Canadian brokerage firms so the values would update automatically. (The videos showed how to do all that.) Interestingly, Mark Zoril is the founder and he's the person who has responded to me every time. He even followed up on my to-do list asking for updates. I was amazed!
Anyway, once I was done, I let them know and they tweaked my SS values, changed the spending models per my request (I wanted to use my 401K before Roth IRA) and they asked me to set up an initial meeting after I sent over what I wanted to know. Mark (via online meeting) was succinct, knew exactly what I wanted and made appropriate recommendations. I had a 30-minute consult after that and we went over some other things. He records all our meetings and sends them to me. Any subsequent questions I emailed, he responded very quickly in a video format. His asset allocation recommendations were very very basic stuff which I wanted (only a few for each account I had) and I think that's his style anyway, from his videos I've watched. I imagine I could utilize him more, but I have been side-tracked with other things, and I haven't. He has already done much more than what I paid for IMHO.
My advice is to utilize someone like that that is much cheaper first and see where you may want to go next. I've used a fee-only CFP decades ago and I found him helpful because I knew almost nothing then. It's hard to pay $4,800 (for example) for mediocre advice at this point, as I know a whole lot more now and not many people would look/sound brilliant.
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