I find Fidelity much easier to use than Vanguard. Fidelity also has phone support available seemingly around the clock, although I confess that I don’t think I have called after midnight east coast time. Specific departments (Fixed Income, 529) are only available during more typical business hours.
My children had their Roth accounts at Vanguard but both moved them over to Fidelity after frustrating searches for the ‘contribute to Roth for current year’ button on existing Roth accounts.
Vanguard was the first with no-fee funds but everyone else has caught up while Vanguard has not invested in their infrastructure. Do not try to access their systems or call on Dec 30th or whatever the last market day is each year.
The research Schwab provides online is excellent but I struggle with their interface. Also, it bothers me that they do not provide YTD tax info on brokerage accounts.
Oops–just noticed that you didn’t ask about Schwab.
I really like Fidelity. It’s very easy to use. Great research tools. And I really like the Total View option, which allows you to see all your financial accounts in one place.
DH is the finance person in the house. When USAA sold off its investment piece to Schwab, I have het to figure out their site. Drives me buggy. I will be in deep trouble if I outlive my DH
In retirement I’ve kept my 401K at Fidelity. I like their website (but maybe that is just because I’ve been using it for a long time). My husband rolled his over to a Schwab account with our fee-only advisor. We have a bit of shared other money at Schwab too, and I don’t like the website (probably because I am not there enough to learn it).
I’ve had to use Merril, Schwab, E*Trade, chase, t Rowe price, ubs, fidelity, and maybe few more. I like Fidelity’s website the best. They have a planning site where you could bring all of your assets/liabilities/income/expense together to plan your retirement and other goals. I have many 401k accounts with various ex-employers, and most of them have their benefits with Fidelity, so I could go to one place to manage them.
My mother had her accounts at Schwab, so I left the modest Inherited IRA, Inherited Roth, and brokerage accounts there. I should probably move them over but also feel there is some benefit in having access to funds in more than one place. I don’t know why I am still not comfortable navigating Schwab’s website. It could be as Colorado mom suggested that I have simply spent more time on the Fidelity site.
I opened up a rollover IRA on Fidelity to consolidate in anticipation of RMD in the future. I had a *^&%$ of a time taking out money from my past jobs and rolling over. It took 6 months in some. Each company (including the state of TX) had at times bizarre requirements. One I had to just take out the money but luckily it was only $5000 I will pay takes for now. It required a medallion signature which is not available in a 4 hour radius.
Fidelity worked with me the whole time and even solved a server problem with Safari that needed a google chrome for Texas just to get a release letter to send to TX. Fidelity had very knowledgeable and patient employees, whereas the other companies were winging it.
@ct1417 … um on my Schwab statements there is a YTD column
Income summary, dividends, Taxable income. I can find most of it also just poking around but I generally do not need to look at it more than once a month. So I wasn’t sure what you meant that they (Schwab) didn’t provide YTD tax info on brokerage accounts. I believe they do.
Not stumping for Schwab over any other, just wanted to clarify! We also have Vanguard and I have my old 401K turned IRA at Fidelity. We are also proponents of “consolidate” yet have some access across different institutions.
I started withdrawals from IRA’s this year. Both Schwab and Fidelity were super easy to set up and to use. Schwab was a bit easier because we already had the links set to our checking account (another institution, credit union). But Fidelity was easy, too ; just took about a week .
Fidelity got their 1099R form out faster than Schwab for what that is worth.
@oldfort I also like to play with the planning and outcomes. I like that Schwab has a feature to combine all or some of the accounts. So I can review mine, mine with IRA, mine with DH …
It is just fun to see the different graphs given which account is included. I can play with them combined or individually. Not that we do very much at all with what I see. Right now we are terribly out of balance and DH (finally!) took some steps in his IRA for a better mix. He had a couple “lucky” stocks in there that REALLY needed diversification.
Vanguard website, terrible. I can rarely find what I’m looking for, and when I have to call, “Your wait time is 90 minutes”. Awful. Fidelity site is user friendly, and the advisors pick up the phone usually. I did have one time where they did a callback, took one minute. Schwab, same as Fidelity.
Oh boy I was just about to open my first Vanguard account (high yield savings) for an emergency fund and then (if all goes well) move a larger chunk of money into CDs, VTSAX.
Is the website interface ao bad you’d not recommend Vanguard at all?
Thanks for that info about Schwab. I confess that I never look at the statements, but just logged in now to see that they do include a YTD taxable income column. However, when I compare it to the 2022 revised 1099, the taxable income reported on the Dec 22 statement was a few thousand higher than that reported on the 1099. I am not sure what the statement YTD taxable column is meant to represent!
I have called Schwab asking if they had a YTD taxable option online, and the rep told me they didn’t. My workaround was to download the YTD transactions from History into Excel to add up the figures, after removing the reinvested amounts.
Schwab has had to send me a revised 1099 each year, but this may be a function of my holdings?
Editing to add: I wonder if you see the same discrepancy between the Dec statement YTD tax and the actual reported on the 1099. I will take a look at 2023 once it is produced.
DH manages our finances and recently said the same thing regarding Vanguard. We’d been with them for decades and he was comfortable. His only complaint was not having a brick and mortar site close to us.
Then my mother passed last year. As executor he was extremely organized and had experience with both of our deceased fathers’ wills. My mother’s financial house was in order and straightforward. My siblings and I are/were in complete agreement.
Vanguard made two huge mistakes that seemed incomprehensible to my DH. He caught the first mistake and had to deal with long phone calls to address the situation. He was told 5-10 business days so he kept checking to see the fix. DH wasn’t happy he was never contacted when the fix was completed but he sort of shrugged it off.
Then the second error was made, which made him very upset. More phone calls and more waiting. DH feels we are reasonable people. Mistakes can happen but how the mistake is addressed is extremely important.
DH decided that he had enough and we started shopping around to make a change. He selected Fidelity. So far he’s happy. He likes having a physical location and a direct team of people he can go to for help. They’ve been responsive and the money they gave us was a sweet bonus.
Mistakes can be so aggravating! When I was executor for my mother, she had two small ancient Prudential insurance policies. The checks for me and my sister both had surname misspellings, despite the act that my mother had gone to the trouble to put our two different married names on the policies.
Regarding Medallion certification, can that only be done at a bank? I have seen notary services to visit houses, nursing homes etc. But Medallion, sometimes needed for adding beneficiaries, seems to be bank-only…. and not all banks.
I’ve been with Vanguard for years. No trouble. Of course, that’s where everything is……so no other experience.
Any question, I have access to personal agent, again same for years. Available by email or phone.
RE: Medallion stamp. We found that Chase was the only local bank that would help us when we were closing out my parents estate. After weeks of being told by other banks that “it’s tied up with legal”, I called and had an appt immediately. My siblings (out of state) had similar success with Chase. H and I moved several accts, including my business, to Chase shortly after this, enough to be Private Clients. The service has been well worth it.
I only had to obtain a Medallion signature once and my local bank handled it for me, however, when researching this, I learned that Medallion guarantee is not available at every branch of my bank so you may have to search to locate one.
Another vote for Fidelity. We are private clients and are very happy with their services. Always prompt and accurate. I have lower amounts of funds at Chase, Vanguard and Schwab as well.