We have our funds in Vanguard and gladly pay the.3% for now for an advisor.
Why? Because my husband and I cannot bring up the topic of investing without an immediate argument.
It took us years to get here.
Ughhh
Vanguard used to provide a free financial plan, but they stopped in 2015. So, based on advice from this thread, I have purchased ESPlanner to do my own financial plan. I set up my initial run with Monte Carlo simulation in three hours last night. I am looking forward to working with it more. Two e-mails to the company with techie questions were answered quickly.
This is not the right approach for everyone, but this seems to work for me.
Itâs probably a good time to mention FIRECalc again.
FireCalc lets you specify in great detail if you want, your investment mix, rates of return, inflation, other sources of income, lump sums, spending patterns, etc, and then runs your scenario through historical markets starting in 1871, then 1872, 1873, etc. It calculates the percentage of time your money would have lasted until the end. So if you get 100%, your money would have lasted even if you were retired during the Great Depression.
Itâs a pretty cool tool. And itâs free.
[FIRECalcÂŽ: How long will your money last?](http://www.firecalc.com/)
âFWIW, I put on my list for Don to ask about Seattle area Ed Slott Master Elite IRA Adviser or if he knows the type of credentialing to look for with FA. Will PM you @busdriver11 .â
Thanks, SOSconcern, but if we end up with an advisor, we would prefer it to be recommended by someone who actually gets their assets managed by that person, though âMaster Elite IRA Advisorâ sounds impressive. Kind of like, âThe Best of the best of the bestâ. 
I donât even know if an advisor is actually what we need. If we get any extra money, we throw it at debt (and hopefully one day at our mortgage, like Bunsen and 4bear), so we donât generally have any cash. Half of our money is in real estate, and the rest in retirement assets, mostly Vanguard 401K stuff. I suppose what we really need to know is if we should move our stuff around at Vanguard, we are very highly invested in stock mutual fund. The high risk is fine (since we donât plan to withdraw for a long time), but if we should do the buy/sell stuff, or just keep plunking it in there. My timing is pretty much crap, so we would probably be better not trying to time the market.
Perhaps the 0.3% would be worth it, but that does seem like a lot of money, unless somehow they are going to make us more than we would on our own. And I feel that they would be way more conservative.
That FireCalc sounds good. I wonder if Iâve already done it, and forgotten about it. But Iâll try it again.
Credentials for a Financial Advisor:
What I recommend is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) or a Certified Financial Planner. Briefly, hereâs what each entails for certification with links provided to each organization if you want to read up in more detail on the process:
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA): https://www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/charterholder/Pages/index.aspx
⢠Administered by a nonprofit organization of investment professionals.
⢠Pass 3 rigorous, sequential exams each of increasing difficulty, one offered each June, with pass rates averaging 42%. Requires rigorous study.
⢠The average CFA takes 4 years to earn their CFA charter.
⢠4 years of qualified work experience in investment decision making.
⢠Incorporates a Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Practice.
⢠The CFA curricula are incorporated into more than 300 business school programs around the world.
⢠The CFA charter is often listed by hiring firms as a prerequisite for employment.
Certified Financial Planner (CFP): http://www.cfp.net/become-a-cfp-professional
⢠Administered by a nonprofit organization of investment professionals.
⢠Must have a minimum of a Bachelorâs degree.
⢠Must pass the CFP exam. Pass rate is 63%.
⢠Must have 3 years of financial planning experience.
⢠Must meet Ethics requirement and subject to background check.
In above posts, there is mention of being an Ed Slott Elite IRA Advisor as credentials for being a good FA. Iâm not saying that attending the Ed Slott workshops wonât be helpful, but its at a very different level than those who go through the steps to become a CFA or CFP. Again, consider getting a CFP or CFA if you are looking for a financial advisor.
Ed Slott Elite IRA Advisor: https://www.irahelp.com/EliteGroup
⢠For Profit company started by public speaker Ed Slott
⢠Complete a 2 day workshop or an e-course focused solely on IRAs. Next one is in February in Las Vegas. https://www.irahelp.com/sites/default/files/2day_attachments/201508/Las%20Vegas%202-Day%20Workshop%20Web%20Program%20Agenda.pdf
⢠From the website: Does attending this workshop make me eligible to join Ed Slottâs Elite IRA Advisor Groupâ ?Yes. You are eligible to join Ed Slottâs Elite IRA Advisor GroupSM as soon as you complete this workshop. You are eligible for two years from the date you completed the 2-Day IRA Workshop. Please contact Patrick Wherry (patrick@irahelp.com) for more information on benefits and pricing.
Firecalc is good at providing Monte Carlo simulations of âwhat are the odds that my money will run out in x years if I wthdraw y percent per year, based on past market history.â
ESPlanner is a more complex and useful tool, although tbh, I run it now mostly out of idle interest. If DW continues to work for 5 years (until 62) at her current comp, or even if she quits tomorrow, I donât see us spending anything close to what ESPlanner says we can if our goal is to âsmooth consumption.â
@BerneseMtnMom, Iâm glad that you found ESPlannerâs customer service to be responsive; itâs been my experience also. One time I got a response from Dr. Kotlikoff himself, although I have found everyone answering the phone or emails to be very knowledgeable and helpful. Now that youâve done the heavy lifting of setting it up, you can tweak it much more easily. For example, I have our baseline âDW works until age 62â family report. I copy that to another dataset and change her retirement to this year and run the reports again. Or, I change how much of our assets we annutitize at retirement and run reports again. Or, I change our market/inflation/tax expectations. Itâs a bit like âconsumption smoothing porn,â but the computer is the only one breathing heavily.
@busdriver11, donât buy any annuities. You donât need any. 
What is the credit rating of the company you work for? AA ⌠You donât have to worry. BBB-âŚprobably in worry zone. You can google this. Companyâs credit rating.
Thatâs my simple analysis. 
Hiw did the manager of some of your money, the guy who makes 18 percent a year, do for you last year? This year so far?
â⢠From the website: Does attending this workshop make me eligible to join Ed Slottâs Elite IRA Advisor Groupâ ?Yes. You are eligible to join Ed Slottâs Elite IRA Advisor GroupSM as soon as you complete this workshop. You are eligible for two years from the date you completed the 2-Day IRA Workshopâ
Wait, so I can be an Elite IRA Advisor after a two day workshop? Maybe I should take his workshop and advise myselfâŚthe fees I pay myself could go to good use, like facials, and better red wine choices. Iâm feeling incentivized already.
" Itâs a bit like âconsumption smoothing porn,â but the computer is the only one breathing heavily."
AhâŚokay then. Now those are words Iâd never expect to be put together in a sentence. I donât know whether to be bored or intrigued, but Iâm starting to nod off right now. $-)
"busdriver11, donât buy any annuities. You donât need any.
What is the credit rating of the company you work for? AA ⌠You donât have to worry. BBB-âŚprobably in worry zone. You can google this. Companyâs credit rating.
Thatâs my simple analysis.
How did the manager of some of your money, the guy who makes 18 percent a year, do for you last year? This year so far?"
Yeah, Iâm not interested in annuities. No reason to get them, plus we donât have any money, so theyâd be pretty puny. I think my companies credit rating is BBB+, they will probably be around forever, however one never knows.
The guy who has made 18% year didnât do too well last year, down 1.1%. His ROI is down to 16.9% for us. Donât know about this year so far. I think we should have left him alone, he had way too much in cash for us last year, and we pushed him to put more into stocks when he was uncomfortable doing so.
Firecalc doesnât use Monte Carlo simulations.
It uses the exact market performance of each year.
I.e. given my described situation, if I had retired in 1871 would I have run out of money based on the actual returns for the next 30 (or however many) years? If I had retired in 1872, would I have run out of money? If I had retired in 1873⌠etc.
Then it gives you a percentage telling you how often you would have run out of money. Thereâs nothing random, thereâs no probabilities in the calculations.
The theory is that if you would have had enough money in every (or almost every) type of market weâve seen in the last 140 years, the odds are pretty good you will have enough going forward.
Now if there is some sort of global apocalypse coming, then even if you got 100% in backtesting, youâd still be screwed.
You pushed the guyâŚwow. Kind of defeated the purpose.
I can see why the guy was uncomfortable.
I like to use annual returns or compounded returns.
ROI doesnât use time.
There is a difference between making a ROI of 16.9 percent over 2 years compared to 1 year for example.
When I talk to many people, and I say it is ok to have some cash, they look at me like I am crazy!
I like firecalc. I like some of the outlier positive results. We donât have anything going on like what occured in 1982 or 1932 so I can throw out those potentially positive results however. 
I can also come up with some scenarios where I would be screwed.
@notrichenough, according to the developer of Firecalc
When I see a bunch of squiggly lines showing possible outcomes, I call it Monte Carlo. Iâm not a scientist :))
"You pushed the guyâŚwow. Kind of defeated the purpose.
I can see why the guy was uncomfortable.
I like to use annual returns or compounded returns.
ROI doesnât use time."
Perhaps a more accurate term would be annualized rate of return. I think heâs had the money 18-19 years now. And as far as pushing the guy, there actually wasnât any âweâ about it. I wanted to leave him alone, but it wasnât worth arguing about. It could have gone either way.
Just an FYI⌠If you like to play with Monte Carlo simulators, Oracle used to have a free trial download of Crystal Ball. Then you can knock yourself out plugging in your own equations! 
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/crystalball/overview/index.html
Thinking about money today has been pretty good - finally got a letter back from IRS on our amended return from 2014 - and since they challenged a line on the return, I have an appt Monday with the CPA who helped with the amendment (and I found out about him through Don - I had gotten really ripped off by another CPA firm who charged me an exorbitant fee a few years ago when I was in the throws of cancer treatment and needed our return done) - this guy Joseph was a dream, very reasonable rate. Refund to follow in 4 - 6 weeksâŚugh. Our return was complicated due to closing out of a family trust - and I had some tax credits etc. I knew I overpaid but had to find someone reasonable who wasnât going to gouge me.
I am sure everyone on this thread (except for CPAs and tax attorneys who make their living with taxes) would wish for simplified taxesâŚ
Second, I got a check from cancelling my personal disability policy - the premium got taken out of my account before I could cancel it. Since it was income replacement (and as a housewife only paid if I was 100% disabled) I was overpaying for the potential insurance benefit. I have LTC insurance, so if I truly become disabled, have coverage for care.
Third, I got a call back from a friend who works in a dept at a company I want to work for - and they have a job opening in that dept that I am qualified for (in her words, I am overqualified for) but hope I can get an interview. The company is interested in me - it is only a matter of time - I have had two interviews already - but I think both the PhDs that interviewed me perhaps thought I would jump ship into a better job with the company - as it is growing and I do have a good skill set. Or my gap in employment - like my brain went deadâŚ
If I can get this jobâŚH says he may get a raise in March (was due already, but company froze them until they are âdoing betterââŚ) he had an excellent performance review.
Kids are doing well. H and I are healthy. Life is pretty good. A spark of new optimismâŚ
We all need to be happy that we have enough money to worry about exorbitant fees, etc.
I have multiple business degrees, and I am certain I have not managed my money as effectively or cost efficiently as I could have.
But I started saving for retirement as soon as I finished college, and I keep on saving. Thatâs what Iâm encouraging my kids to do also.