Is your advisor asking all the right questions?
If you are near retirement, you are not going to know the
answer to your retirement questions. How do you know you will have enough or if
you will work in retirement or where will you live or have you moved all your
old jobs’ 401ks to your money hub? Will you have paid off your credit cards,
loans and mortgage or are you planning on carrying debt in retirement. Can you
estimate all your income source amounts? Do you want to stay past official
retirement age and can you downshift to less working hours? Do you use a
balanced mutual fund or annuity to provide a fixed monthly income? How much of
your nest egg will you give up for a fixed annuity for life, knowing you lose
HALF your purchasing power every 20 years? You may be better off waiting until
you are in retirement to pay for a real full-blown financial plan. Most
advisors don’t have that experience. You are the only one who knows what you
need.
Where can you find reliable ‘readable’ financial
information?
The average readability score of the 60 sites of asset
management firms analyzed was 37, (out of 100) which is the equivalent of
requiring a college degree to easily understand communications, a new
study said. The average American reads at an 8th-grade level, which is a
score between 60 and 70 on a scale of 100. From this we conclude that the
audience for these sites is not the average person but the high net worth folks
who have money. The average American has little money to invest. Most are happy
to match their contributions to a 401k or other employer plan. Further, the broker/advisor
industry—the actual customer—does not want their clients to educate themselves.
Vanguard had the highest readability score; Black Rock the lowest.
Have enough money to live past age100?
The number of people living past age 100 is doubling. No one
knows how long they will need living expenses but you need a plan. When you
reach your full retirement age, you can work and earn as much as you want and
still get your full Social
Security benefit payment. When you reach full retirement age, SS will
recalculate your benefit to give you credit for months you didn’t get a benefit
because of your earnings. In addition, as long as you continue to work
and receive benefits, SSA will check your record every year to see whether the
extra earnings will increase your monthly benefit. SS uses your ‘highest’
earnings for 35 years so you could increase your benefits by working at higher
incomes. If your benefits began at age 70 (the highest level possible) then
each year the amount increases based upon the cost of living increases. ($1 coffee in 1979 costs
$3.53 now.) You can invest in higher return stocks even in your 60s and 70s
since you won’t need that money until your 90s or 100s.
What happens to you when your advisor’s firm gets bought out?
You
may become just a number. Despite all the assurances they provide, firms
with cash are buying more firm’s clients to make even more. They are buying
your quarterly fees which go up in a rising market no matter what your advisor
does or doesn’t do. In fact you may have to pay higher fees and/or buy more
products to stay. You may get a new person to ‘handle’ your account. It may be
time to reconsider if a high-cost advisory service is really what you need.
Today, you can buy money management that earns more since it costs less. You
can buy a full retirement and estate plan for a set one-time fee. Both of these
options are being picked by those who have tested advisor management and
self-management. Some have made the change for more control and more earnings.
Some advisors may think they are helping you by offering more services. But if
you don’t need them, you are not going to be serviced at the same level. Like
every industry, bigger and better is not always better for YOU.
Let Buffett be your
advisor: https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffett-Your-Investment-Advisor/dp/1518690963
Notice: new cars cost more
The average car loan for both new and used cars continues to
rise, to more
than $32,000 for a new car and just over $20,000 for a used car, Experian
found. Since I have never bought a ‘new’ car, I had no idea that the ones in my
parking lot are probably over $50K. People with average incomes are going to
the used car lots more often. Today, 3 year olds are usually in better shape
than in the past. Car brands that have a history of 200K
mileage are made better so you can find a great bargain. Car shoppers could
save more than $14,000, on average, by buying a three-year-old car instead of
its new equivalent. Experian said the average monthly used-car payment was $392.
If your credit is poor, try using a larger down payment so you are not paying
interest till 2028. I shopped for my used Camry using 3 online sellers with
specific attention to the dealer’s rating. I did not want to travel 60 miles to
find that the seller didn’t actually have the one advertised. I used Guru, Edmund
and Kelly. Then I checked the dealer
reviews.
I saved on new insurance too: https://www.amazon.com/Vehicle-Insurance-Beware-Double-Coverage/dp/1480027634
Vanguard to offer digital financial planner
Vanguard is offering financial planning and investment
management for just a couple tenths of a percentage point of assets under
management. It assesses
clients’ risk characteristics; it exercises discretionary management over
assets (including halting trading in cases of “an undue risk of harm”); and,
perhaps most importantly, it includes goal
forecasting. Digital Advisor is built on long-term, goal-based investing.
Goals are currently limited to saving for retirement, but in the future will
include “personalized financial goals.” It will also assess the feasibility of
meeting financial goals using assets or accounts that Digital Advisor does
not manage—the caveat being that since it is not managing
those assets, it cannot increase the likelihood of success for those
goals. Investors only need $3,000 to open an account and advisory fees are set
at 0.20% of assets, charged annually and calculated quarterly, for managed
retail accounts. There is also a 401(k) option for Digital Advisor, with a $5
minimum to enroll if the service is supported by the investor’s plan sponsor.
Time to replace your high-cost advisor? https://www.amazon.com/Best-Robo-Advisor-Ultimate-Automatic-Management/dp/1537111957
‘Professional’ money managers fall behind your index fund
New study shows that the most highly paid ‘institutional’
managers are doing worse than your simple market index fund. Fees and poor
trading strategies are the reason. Institutional large-cap managers
underperformed their passive benchmarks 85% of the time over the same 10-year
period. Looking down the market capitalization spectrum, institutional
managers fared even worse. Active mid-cap managers underperformed their
passive benchmark at an 88% clip during the decade, while small-cap managers
underperformed more than 85% of the time, net of fees. The results suggest that
even with the purported higher overall quality and lower fees of institutional
funds, active managers struggle to beat their passive indexes across most fund
categories, particularly in equities. This confirms the scorecard kept by
Dalbar: average ‘managed’ account return was 3.79%
vs 11% for your index fund.
Use Buffett’s recommended funds: https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffetts-Vanguard-Funds-Retirement/dp/1496148592
**********
How Govt wastes our money: Congress spends another 1.7 Trillion we don’t have!
Just like his ‘middle-class
tax break,’ Trump’s
‘rebuilding’ community’s helps only rich
Tariffs cost each
of us $1,000: wiped out the $600 tax cut last year.
Farmer
Socialism can hurt our capitalist nation: soon everyone will want free
money!
Trump
wants war again: he’s “locked and loaded” but never served; now wait
2 former govt aides
subpoenaed: They didn't show up. No
arrest No fine No jail
Govt failed to
protect 400,000 of us: opioid drug overdoses since 1999: No drug
arrests.
Trump
condemns CA residents to more smog: ends right to set own fumes limit.
SCAMS/SPINS:
Fake Apple Support
calls: scam
for icloud data
Now chicken
linked to cancer: air, meat, chicken, water, vegs, booze: nothing healthy?
Equifax
did not prevent breach of our data but now wants us to prove we bought
monitor
General Nutrition
Centers (GNC) caught
promoting “phantom markdowns” on its site.
Wayfair, online home
goods, caught
exaggerated savings and misleading price claims
TV show ‘deals’ pays
TV to hype stuff: ‘promotional consideration’ is kickback.
Zantac
may not be healthy: FDA checking cancer links AFTER approval
Hackers stole
$4.2 million from pension for retired Oklahoma Highway Patrol
troopers
Your ‘weed’ may give
you extra kick: toxic
pesticides
SEC finds more
advisors trying to rip-of customers: high cost share class and 12b-1 fees.
JPMorgan caught
letting advisors
slide on fraud, stealing, forgery, lying, etc to customers
Dean McDermott caught
defrauding: charging improper transaction costs
Safeway AonHewitt caught
charging 401k employees excessive fees: ruined retirements
Kevin Merrill, Jay
Ledford, Cameron Jezierski caught
Ponzi scheme 230 investors: ban
MyPayrollHR caught
stealing $35 million in payroll from companies: went into clouds!
Jay Daniel Seinfeld caught
stealing from terminally ill and dead with lies for signature
Check consumer
complaints before you give anyone your money
Bank windfall: end
of protection from another
2008 bank meltdown: $40B bonus!
GOP
to give $1.1 billion to military to make them ‘ready’ to fight: Already
‘ready’?!
Navy
admits there are hundreds of UFO in the sky: so what? We’ve always seen
them
Jobs
AZ Family farms die:
corporate
farms take all the water down to 1,000 feet.
$240,447
average comp for your experienced CFP advisor with commissions
Right Social
Security decision gets your family $821,000 in life
Who owns your account now?
Where
are your drugs the LEAST expensive? You can save 100-200% by shopping.
Our pensions at risk
after many bought assets without
knowing the risks: Chasing yields!
Mortgage re-fi time:
fed
rate lower may make it worthwhile even with closing costs.
Miracle:
Shopping for
funeral? Internet
lets you compare prices: Few tell all—Surprise!
Hundreds of working
people donated enough $1s to save
a forest/falls from development
Greta Thunberg to
Barack Obama: 'No
one is too small to have an impact'
Colt
will suspend production of AR-15 rifles: ‘too many’ in the market now
IAN
41 Watchung Plaza,
B242
973.746.2014
Alerts
