We finally did it! After starting our investment journey in 1995 with a financial advisor I also started our own taxable investment portfolio in 1998 and grew it to over 77% of our total stock assets. Our FA held 23% of it and soon it will be zero. I hesitated way too long and should have done this years ago. About half of the assets need to be liquidated because they were in private equity and could not be transferred over in kind. One of the drawbacks to PE is that it takes between 30-90 days to get your money. This move allows us to remove $10k+ in yearly fees, consolidate our stock assets onto one trading platform, better in analyzing our overall performance across all of our accounts, and easier to gauge our upcoming 2027 RIFF withdrawals. We currently have 35% in fixed income/cash in our taxable accounts and another 12%+ more cash coming from our FA. The question is going to be what to do with this new flush of cash?......mostly in our RRSPs. Any suggestions for 2 retiree's in their last 50's-early 60's? You will soon see some changes to my Blossom portfolio % due to adding more investments/cash that will drop our All Time number.
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46 Comments
Bradley @bradleytalksmoney · 4d
I wouldn't jump to cut ties with the FA. Maybe they don't manage your money any more, but they can still be incredibly valuable when it comes to tax planning, optimization strategies, withdrawal planning, ect. They don't need to be making the investment decisions, but they still have valuable insight
TQ @tqrad888 · 4dEdited
@junky12 Congrats on the big move!👍 Was your FA charging you a fee based on percentage of AUM? If so, do you know what percentage fee you are being charged?🤷♂️ When I first started with my FA, more than 10 years ago, they were charging me 0.9% of AUM. The firm has a graded fee structure with lower percentage of AUM charged as your portfolio grows. I believe their fee structure is normally not lower than 1% of AUM for any portfolio $1M and under. Like most wealth management firms and most financial advisors, they prefer to have wealthier clients, with larger portfolios.💰💵Makes sense to me.🤔 Over time I was able to negotiate lower and lower fees, because my portfolio was growing larger and larger, to the present time where I’m being charged 0.3% AUM. I’m told this is the LOWEST FEE they are charging for ANY of their clients in their practice, which numbers in the many hundreds. Whether or not this is true is another matter!😂 They tell me they have some large clients, with their largest client having more than $15M (and this was several years ago, so that $15M may now be $20M, or even higher) under their management. And this wealthy client is apparently paying MORE than my 0.3% of AUM. Whether or not this is also true is another matter!😂😂 Even if this wealthy client paid at the same rate as me at 0.3% AUM, the wealthy client would be paying $60,000 per year in fees to the financial advisor, which is quite significant! As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I split off a portion of my portfolio from my FA in late 2023 and have been managing this portion of my portfolio on my own. The other portion of my portfolio is still held with my FA, and i’m OK with it because my FA and accountant at the firm provide other services. The other services include things such as full financial planning, accounting and tax services, and if needed things like life and disability insurance and detailed retirement planning and strategies, legal, family trusts and advanced strategies, etc. If I send them an email with a question or request, they respond to me immediately, usually within a matter of a few minutes. They even respond to me in the evening and on weekends. I find it is quite nice to have this type of white glove service!⚪️🧤👍 Does your current FA provide other useful services for you? . Will you miss those services when you completely leave your FA?
Alexey @a1exey · 4d
don’t fall into covered calls etfs
Le Corb@lecorb · 4dEdited
Well done and congratulations for advancing your retirement plans! Soon, seeing your entire portfolio under one dashboard and platform will be nice! With respect to cash, I’m currently holding cash simply in high yield savings like ZMMK. But looking at a number of short term, corporate and long term bonds as well as currency hedged bonds. The idea of actively managing the cash wedge, emergency and “dry powder” for changes in the market. As soon as interest rates start to rise (if), we know the market will react and it will be an opportunity for bonds. During last market crash $TLT had a 40% price appreciation. So I’m developing an approach and strategy for cash management and bond investing for this next leg of the cycle. I believe @etf.go is preparing for the same.
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