friar1610 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:57 pm
cowdogman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 8:23 pm
afan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 8:16 pm
A better solution, and far cheaper than even 0.3%, is to use an hourly fee planner for financial advice and a simple 3 fund portfolio for investment. There is no point in paying anyone anything to run a 3 fund portfolio but if occasional rebalancing is too intimidating then a balanced fund is the solution. The increased cost over an index fund is much less than 0.3%.
Yep, that's where I'm coming out after this discussion. The trick of course if finding the right per hour planner.
I went through the PAS drill a couple of times in the past and each time couldn’t convince myself it met my needs. Like many here, I was looking for a service that would hold my wife’s hand, financially speaking, when I’m 6’ under.
My main issue is that PAS deals only with Vanguard assets. I have a big chunk of I-Bonds, a direct CD ladder and an unannuitized deferred annuity in addition to several VG accounts. (VG assets are the majority of my holdings.) I don’t necessarily want to liquidate those holdings and turn them over to VG to place in their funds. But I do want my assets to be viewed comprehensively with recommendations covering all my assets as a cohesive whole. VG told me they couldn’t
manage those non-VG assets (which I totally understand) but they would
consider those assets when making recommendations for the VG assets. But when they produced the plan/recommendations, I never saw any indication that they had done so. (We had discussed the fact that I would like to shoot for a 50/50 overall allocation. They gave me that in VG funds. But the I-Bonds and CDs (which they’d said they would consider) brought the overall allocation to more like 35/65. And they didn’t have a good answer how they’d “considered” the non-VG stuff.
I finally went to fee-only
investment advisor Rick Ferri who reviewed my port (as a whole - VG and non-VG - ) and made a few recommendations for tweaking it. He doesn’t do ongoing portfolio management although he can apparently recommend people he has vetted and who charge PAS-like fees. I plan to continue managing the port myself for the present. If I get to the point that I lose interest in doing so, I’ll call Rick for an updated portfolio review and a recommendation on someone to manage it for me and/or my wife. (I’m 75 and finding my interest in personal finance is waning ever so slightly.)
So, based on prior experience, I will not be leaving my wife instructions to seek out PAS when I’m no longer in the picture. I understand PAS may work better for those with different needs than mine.
I don’t mean to be morbid, but I would like to find a PAS-like advisor who is 20 years younger than I. I’m still “young” but the more I think about estate planning, the more I want to get and identify someone who can manage this in my absence. Namely,
- make a back door Roth contribution on the 1st of the year, as appropriate
- turn-key coordinate an accountant to calculate the Roth conversion for the year
- keep track of inherited IRAs, Roth and 401k
- tax loss harvest and rebalance through the year
- plan for upcoming expense items
- purchase I-bonds in treasury direct as needed
- calculate 4% withdrawal rate budget for the year
- keep track of HSA balance and receipts held in reserve
- coordinate with admin co-trustee on trust held for heir, if appropriate
- quarterly read-outs, maybe semi annual to beneficiaries or spouse
For a sense of scale, if I left $5M, then is that worth $15k per year for 0.3%? I think so... Does that sound right?