Retirement planning university

[MillCreek]

We recently received a mail flyer for Retirement Planning University (https://offer.retirementplanninguniversity.com/register?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-qGNBhD3ARIsAO_o7ym4HbXKVBsKptO22OSmregTWRPRfumC6CB8Y38KqTNOYhKeFK6jV24aAkAbEALw_wcB) and I thought it sounded good for only $ 39. I would not recommend it if you already have a modicum of financial/retirement savvy. 

The two-night seminar offers a cursory overview of various retirement and financial topics but the real goal is for the seminar to be a sales lead generator for the financial advisors running the seminar.  They want you to sign up with them, put all your assets under management and they will take a percentage of your assets as their fee.  I was not convinced that they could do a better job than I am doing running our portfolio for the low low fee of zero percent.  The financial adviser clearly did not like me bringing up a self-directed portfolio with Vanguard as an option.

[K Frame]

Vanguard, where I have my primary 401(k) that I built over 20 years with SAIC, has been pushing VERY VERY VERY hard for me to join their managed portfolio account program.

They've even gone down the "YOU'LL DIE BROKE AND LIVE IN A CARDBOARD BOX IF YOU DON'T LET US MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNTS!" fear route on some of their communications.

I looked into it when they first rolled it out and, of course, the one thing they wanted to do was strip my 401k of all non-Vanguard funds because "they're dangerous to your bottom line!"

One of those funds has been, over the 20+ years I've had the account, a consistent wealth generator, while some of the fund that they touted as a "safe bet" have been.... not wealth generators.

They also repeatedly sent me dire warnings about having some of my 401k wrapped up in SAIC and Leidos (SAIC and Leidos were broken out as independent companies from parent SAIC around 2006-2010 or so).

POVERTY! PENURY! SPAM!

Yeah, my SAIC and Leidos holdings are about 5% of my total 401k portfolio.... Jesus...

And then there's the fees. For active management they charge a percentage of your totals assets skimmed off the top... monthly.

IIRC the annual fee for them actively managing my account would have been something around $36,000 a year.

It's pretty easy to do the math on that, and it comes out to a big *expletive deleted*ck NO.

Don't get me wrong. I like Vanguard a lot. I'm very happy that I was able to get in with them with SAIC, but over the years I think I've done a pretty good job managing my own 401k by developing a plan and sticking with that plan, and I sure as hell am not going to change now.


Fidelity, which administers my current 401k, is also starting to push on the active management. And the answer is the same. No.

[MillCreek]

One thing was clear to my wife and I during the seminar, based on the questions of the other 30 people attending: a lot of people do not have the intellectual capacity, time or interest to manage their own money, and they are the perfect candidates for a financial adviser with assets under management.  I bet most of us here on this site are better prepared to manage our own money.  We may still hire a fee-only adviser for some specific tax or other questions, but I don't anticipate turning over the portfolio.  It also reinforced to me that since my wife is not interested in the nuts and bolts of the portfolio, to consolidate everything into a one fund portfolio upon retirement or advancing age.  That way, if I die first, it will be easier for her to manage.

[K Frame]

"One thing was clear to my wife and I during the seminar, based on the questions of the other 30 people attending: a lot of people do not have the intellectual capacity, time or interest to manage their own money, and they are the perfect candidates for a financial adviser with assets under management."

Yep, very very true, and my experience is certainly not everyone else's by any stretch of the imagination.

I grew up with a Father who was pretty damned bad at managing daily finances, which put a lot of stress on my family over the years. Early on I decided that I would not live like that and I worked very hard to educate myself on the basics of finance and investing.

Working at Navy Federal Credit Union certainly helped with my education. No only did I have to learn it, I had to write about it for new members who were often military enlistees who had virtually no knowledge about how personal finances worked.

I didn't get into investing with NFCU, as we didn't offer it at the time, but when they rolled out 401ks for employees that's when my education on investing started.

Granted, I've made some pretty bad choices over the years, but everyone has. I invested in a Vanguard precious metals and mining fund that looked like it had solid fundamentals but ended out being a huge money pit for me, but over all, I think I've done pretty well.

[HankB]

Someone should have asked "Is your recommended adviser a fiduciary?"