Above ^^^^ is the approach that the Topic Author should take. Hire a Certified Financial Planner to create a plan for you. It will likely cost you a few thousand dollars but you will learn a lot and be much better prepared for retirement. You learn a lot just in gathering the information the Planner asks for and in answering the questionnaire.I'm helping my father with his retirement planning now. We are speaking with a CFP financial planner at a firm that is charging us a one-time fee to create a plan. It's not cheap, but much less than AUM. However it works out, I'll make a post about it. My father has been with Fidelity wealth management for the last 7 years. His advisor was nice, but the amount they have charged him is quite simply staggering. It is also going to be costly to unwind the roughly 60+ holdings in the taxable account that all have relatively high expense ratios. I would avoid. The new CFP has asked us to categorize all of our expenses as well as submit statements from all bank, brokerage accounts, life insurance, real estate, annuities, etc. Going through all of these things in a systematic way has been hours of work...I'm glad somebody is helping us out. Or rather I'm hopeful that they will. I've read several books listed on the wiki here. I am finding that the investment strategy is only one part of it. Estate planning is another. So are taxes. So is gifting. I understand it's not rocket science, but it's not as easy as many people make it out to be either. This forum seems to have many helpful people. Good luck.
Not sure I would hire an Advisor with an Asset Under Management arrangement, a big issue is that they might put you into a complex portfolio that is difficult to unwind. If you hire an AUM Advisor, you need to know your all-in costs, not only the Advisory fee but also the expense ratios of the funds in which you would be invested and any trading and account fees. If the Advisor likes the low-cost index funds, that is a great sign. The very low expense ratios are a big help in getting your all-in costs down.
What I would do first is to use your resources on YouTube. I would start with the Bogleheads YouTube channel, particularly with topics of interest to you from the Bogleheads conferences. That alone is a rich resource that will answer a lot of questions. I also watch Ben Felix, Rob Berger, Joe Kuhn, James Canole, and Ari Taublieb. This is a good first step to acquaint yourself with the planning process so that when you hire a Financial Planner you will be able to get a lot more out of it.
The problem with using do-it-yourself planning software is that you can get vastly incorrect results if you aren't careful. You have to understand how the program works and the assumptions behind the planning. I think I would hire a Planner who has training and experience with the software, I think you will have better results.
Lots of folks here have been pleased with Mark Zoril and PlanVision, you get the best of both worlds, low costs and personalized advice. One thing is that they want you to do your own input into their system but this is what helps drive the low cost. Everything is done remotely but in this day of high technology is easy to do, even Nedsaid can do conferences over the computer. This would be a good compromise for you.
Statistics: Posted by nedsaid — Thu Oct 03, 2024 10:08 pm — Replies 25 — Views 1060