Diy?

[houseelf]

I'm thinking of transferring our investments over to Vanguard and managing everything myself. We have a good accountant who is worth every penny. Honestly, the guy we use has given us great advice, but nothing that I couldn't have found online. Anyone attending level or above do this or is a financial advisor a "must do"? Is this just crazy talk?

[Sheherezade]

We self manage. I'm not sure it's a great idea but we aren't in debt and seem to be doing ok for retirement. We do have a lot of index funds and access to advice from benefits office and our bank.

I'm thinking it's fine for a typical life plan. I don't think we'd be ok if we had to stretch our dollars more to save or if DH wanted to retire early. I think that takes some skills.

All we manage is "lack of stupidity" but not "skills".


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[spotty_dog]

I'm very comfortable with managing our investments. I'm only envious of those with advisors for the planning aspect, I'm not always confident about deciding how much to save and where. If you can find me on Goodreads, check out my "finance" shelf. I recommend all of the 5-star and most of the 4-star selections.

At this rate we'll have seven figures investible (not counting emergency fund or home equity or college savings) within 5 years (10 years post-training) at the very latest. Probably more like 3. We pay an average .17 expense ratio across all our investments, so we keep a lot more than if we were paying the typical 1% of assets under management, or more, plus fund expense ratios that can range over 1% as well and transaction costs of high-turnover managed accounts. Compound growth on that savings is nothing to sneeze at.

[PrincessFiona]

We self-manage. We are really happy with how we have our retirement funds set up and we do have a good budget and saving plan ... when we follow them. I have honestly never understood why someone would want to use an accountant. Our problem is often our own choices .... and sometimes when we make them, we know the right answer is no but we do things anyway.

I say ditch the accountant and save the $

[PrincessFiona]

I will, however, hire Alison, after reading her post.

[spotty_dog]

I will, however, hire Alison, after reading her post.

Eh, we're more on the "lack of stupidity" end of the spectrum too. Saving early and often helps a ton, as does hitting the market correctly (missed the last downturn and maybe even bought low). I just think it's cool that we're at a point where investment growth is going to rival contributions soon (even if the markets slow down a lot). Compound growth FTW!

[Vishenka69]

We tried going with a highly recommended guy but he was very wishy-washy about his fees, so we dropped him. DH now does everything himself through Vanguard. He lives on Bogleheads and White Coat forums. His (ours) philosophy is in line with Alison's.

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[houseelf]

OK guys, I'm reviving this thread because I'm breaking up with my advisor. Honestly, I'm so grateful we had a professional to start us out, we had so much to consider it was daunting.

Now we've got a good handle on insurance, an o.k. size nest egg, and I'm feeling a bit more confident. I'm changing our accounts to Vanguard today. I *hate* paying high fees. I'm going to start with some lifecycle funds and stay broad. We do the traditional to Roth IRA conversions every year, which I'll have to be responsible for, and we have some 529s so this is going to be a bit of a job to change it over. I hope I'm doing the right thing. My husband has agreed to this as long as I don't let my anxiety get to me. (I'm a bit high strung, don't know if you all picked up on this. tee hee.)

Wish me luck. This could get interesting!

I seriously might need a drink.

[spaz]

We've always done it ourselves and are very happy. But we don't panic either. It was hard watching the kids 529 plans plummet ( what year was that 2008??) and lose half their value, but we stayed with our goals and since we automatically invest each month the average cost thing worked out. Like Alison, our gains equal what we put in in many cases. Like she said, it helps that we started automatically withdrawing when each kid was just a few months old.

One thing no one has mentioned is online calculators. We tend to plug in the numbers in January and again in June to make sure we are saving enough for retirement, 529, etc. Each January we also go over our family budget. I show where we have gone over or under? Any new expenses like grandma's medicine? We used the online calculators to decide how much to put in savings for our kids' college and it has been spot on. Our oldest will deplete all the money in his UGTM( weren't 529 plans when he was born so we started there) and 529 plans. I don't think we'll have to touch his ROTH.

Anyway, try a variety of online calculators as each will give you a different number.

If you are a Christian you might consider Sound Mind Investing. I think we pay 8 dollars a month to get the newsletter and access to the blogs and such. We've been very happy. ( They give you their choices in various sectors...as well as the Biblical perspectives on issues.)

[spotty_dog]

Now we've got a good handle on insurance, an o.k. size nest egg, and I'm feeling a bit more confident. I'm changing our accounts to Vanguard today. I *hate* paying high fees. I'm going to start with some lifecycle funds and stay broad. We do the traditional to Roth IRA conversions every year, which I'll have to be responsible for, and we have some 529s so this is going to be a bit of a job to change it over. I hope I'm doing the right thing. My husband has agreed to this as long as I don't let my anxiety get to me. (I'm a bit high strung, don't know if you all picked up on this. tee hee.)

Wish me luck. This could get interesting!

I seriously might need a drink.

Luck! Do some research, pick a conservative asset allocation, grab yourself some Lifecycle funds to fit, and just let 'er ride. When you've got that under control and are feeling feisty or have a portfolio that's large enough to support a bit more diversification and tax consideration, you can ditch the Lifecycle and break it into individual funds quite easily. But there are people on the Bogleheads with multi-million dollar portfolios that have weathered all storms, all in Lifecycle or Target Retirement and the like. You can't really go wrong if you go low-cost!

Are you thinking of changing your 529s to a state that does Vanguard?

[BonBon]

Good luck!! We've been using Vanguard since 2001 and have been very happy with them.

[houseelf]

Thanks, guys. Luckily we have enough that we qualify for their concierge service, meaning Vanguard fills out the paperwork, we sign, and they deal with the conversion. Apparently they have a department that manages annual Traditional to Roth conversions for people like us trying to avoid the tax ramifications.

Our kids have Coverdells for their college savings. Don't be impressed. We are way underfunded for their college, which starts in a mere 4.5 years. Gasp. At this point, we're planning on wiping out our own student loan debt and just covering it with cash on those 10 month payment plans, with a strong emphasis on in-state tuition or scholarships. . DS14 has mentioned an interest in ROTC, so that may or may not come into play. Cutting to the chase, this means that we will pay for college our whole lives! This is what happens when you get your first real job at age 38.

Anyhoo, Vanguard does not offer Coverdells so will have to pick a 529. (Suggestions???? Anyone happy with a particular 529 performance?)

Needless to say the advisor was a bit salty at the suggestion that we were looking to minimize fees. Yeah. I have grown so much in my abilty to treat this as a complete business transaction. In the past six months, I've had to fire an accountant and an advisor this year as well as play hard ball in contract negotiations. Medicine has jacked us around enough that I'm totally able to not worry about the other person's reaction. Business is business. We've been on the other side of this impersonal business stance before, so it is easier to say, "Thanks, but our professional relationship has run its course."

I forgot to mention that the bulk of our savings is actually not with our advisor but in a former 401k Lifecycle fund with TIAA-Cref. We've been very happy with their performance. Hopefully between TIAA-CREF and Vanguard there is enough diversity that we should be adequately protected. At some level, we can only do what we can do.

RE:Bogglehead site. I love the book and enjoy the website, but can't stand the lack of forum organization on the net. It's hard to read because each issue just blurts right out after the other. I'm still a newbie at this and reading too much complex stuff that doesn't apply can overwhelm me.

[spotty_dog]

Yeah, I hoped that you'd be able to take advantage of the Vanguard advisors, which will be a big benefit. I'm glad ditching the investment manager wasn't too stressful!

The Utah 529 can be invested in Vanguard index funds, so if your state tax advantages don't outweigh the difference in fees and investment options, it's a popular choice. That said, with 4.5 years to go, you're going to be in uber-safe investments so it isn't really going to matter a lot. Just minimize fees. Check out http://www.savingforcollege.com/.

You will want to decide on an asset allocation, write it down in an Investment Policy Statement, and do the math to be sure that your total portfolio, between TIAA and Vanguard, is where you want it to be. I seriously don't mean to make this overwhelming, but it'd suck to go into a big stock market downturn and realize you were overexposed to equity, or sit through a decade of excellent stock growth only to find out you were too heavily in low-performing fixed income and didn't enjoy most of the growth.

Hm, are you looking at the landing page at the front of bogleheads.org? Their main forum is actually a PHPBB like this one, organized into sub-forums: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php

[The White Coat Investor]

I agree that Utah has a great 529, but I'm totally biased.

Any doctor (or even better, his or her spouse) can manage his own investments with a reasonable amount of education and discipline. If you're not willing to at least suffer through a good investing book once a year, you might be better off with a good advisor who offers good advice for a fair price (which is perhaps 5% or less of advisers out there unfortunately.)

[scrub-jay]

I agree that Utah has a great 529, but I'm totally biased.

Any doctor (or even better, his or her spouse) can manage his own investments with a reasonable amount of education and discipline. If you're not willing to at least suffer through a good investing book once a year, you might be better off with a good advisor who offers good advice for a fair price (which is perhaps 5% or less of advisers out there unfortunately.)

What books do you recommend?