I've been doing my best to educate myself on investing. I'd consider myself maybe just a little above average intelligence. A degree in electrical engineering (for what that's worth). A 25 year career in enterprise storage. At almost 50 I'm doing ok. Got some money saved for retirement, saving more than I'm spending. One kid in college, one kid with 2 years of high school left.

My parents didn't know ANYTHING about investing. Literally nothing. They've worked hard all their lives, and have done ok. I was always pretty intimidated by why "investing" mean. I thought you had to pick stocks, understand business plans, read balance sheets, maybe needed a degree in business or finance to be a player.

A few times when I got a bonus at work I'd dial up a couple "financial advisers" and go get the sales pitch (none of which I ever bought). Fucking crooks, those guys. Insurance salesman, high commissions. Vultures, those fuckers. I may not know shit about anything, but I know a time-share presentation when I see one.

After a lot of reading and Youtube I stumbled across Rob Berger, and the three-fund portfolio. If you don't have the time, inclination, or persistence it takes to be an "investor", I can't recommend this guy enough.

No bullshit. No sales pitch. Links to free tools that let you test out ideas. After going through his catalog of videos I'm pretty confident that I have the right strategy (for me), and it's so stupid ridiculously simple that even an engineer can do it.

I've seen a lot of investment questions come up here on the forum, and wanted to contribute. If only my parents had been able to show me this 30 years ago......

You can do this with absolutely no help from anybody. Open an account at Vanguard, or Fidelity, etc. No "roboadviser" fees, no "fiduciary" taking their cut. Buy three funds, contribute to them as much as you can.





Don't panic.

I really wanted to use a financial advisor several times over the years, but invariably, I get the same feeling you've described. It becomes particularly attractive as the responsibility for mistakes increases (funds grow larger, and I'm closer to retirement, and funky market dynamics). But I keep reminding myself that I am the guy that did the things that saved that pile of money.

Interestingly, the advisors I know in my life are doing spectacularly well. I don't begrudge them their success, but 1% of MY life savings, every year, whether they create massive increases, or whether the market takes us all down the hole. Just doesn't make sense to me at all. Again, if I was just starting and had my first $5k saved, it might somehow be more invisible as I ride through life and amass my retirement fund. But I'm into my 50s and I've saved HARD for my whole life. They want 1% to fancy up my diversification? Makes me wretch. 1% is a lot of financial drag on the lot, particularly in this environment.

I generally make it even easier than what he describes in the first video. I own the Vanguard Target funds (2040 in my case), which includes those total funds, plus an intl bond fund in the following percentages:

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares --- 47.90%
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Investor Shares --- 31.70%
Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index Fund8 --- 14.10%
Vanguard Total International Bond II Index Fund --- 6.30%

Now, my mea culpa: I've made some tax mistakes when venturing outside of tax advantaged vehicles like a 401k or 403b. So, if you're ever planning to do anything there, tread lightly and have someone that knows what their doing with you.

I know a couple of people who've gotten involved with lousy Financial Advisors and lost some serious money and I've been approached by a couple of them but was never interested.

OTOH, I do have a Financial Advisor who's a Fiduciary and have had around 25 years with him and he's made me a lot of money.

Good ones are hard to find and I was lucky in that I almost literally stumbled upon him years ago.

I've been a Dogs of the Dow investor since long before the Gardner brothers gave dividend investing that name. Easy and it works. Plenty more info on the web, link is the 1st thing that came up.

https://www.dogsofthedow.com/

Our core non-retirement funds have centered around Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund, Total Bond Market Index Fund and Intermediate-Term, Tax-Exempt Fund. They have done well for us.

My old financial advisors made me money for decades.

I would have made more if I listen to him more.

He retired. His replacement is ok, but I do not have the same faith in the new team.

Statistically, people with good financial advisors make a good amount more return on investment than those that don't.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
My old financial advisors made me money for decades.

I would have made more if I listen to him more.

He retired. His replacement is ok, but I do not have the same faith in the new team.

Statistically, people with good financial advisors make a good amount more return on investment than those that don't.

The strategies aren't usually much different than available to average people, from resources like Paul Merriman.

They tend to make clients more money by coaching people to not freak out or do stupid things during a downturn, use tax loss harvesting STRATEGICALLY, and even make contrarian investments.

Note: I have a background in this.

Active investment (I.e. picking individual stocks, trading them, etc) underperforms passive over time, statistically - and even if it matches passive, you still pay additional fees for active (whether it be an individual financial advisor, an active fund etc).

Select a few index funds with minimal fees, and you will be generally outperform any but the luckiest of fellow investors; remember, investing isn’t gambling.