S/O Vanguard financial services

[noodleoo]

A few posted in the polls that they use Vanguard for financial advising services.  Can someone explain to me how this works (seriously, like I'm 5)?  I've wanted to use a financial advisory service for years but I'm scared of the fees.  I went in for a free visit with Fidelity a few years ago and they mostly tried to sell me on their paid services.  I was very turned off my the visit.  But I have a lot of money at Vanguard (>$150K in a 401K rollover) so I think maybe I'd qualify?

[ohgillian]

Here's some info: investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-advisor

So I basically cold-called Vanguard and said I wanted to move my accounts there, and they assigned me a person to help me and now she's our personal advisor.

In your case, I think just check the website after you log in and see if you can find info about how to access the services.

Our advisor is available for questions via email/message; she made a written financial plan for us based on extensive discussion about our goals; she helped us come up with our goals (e.g., she helped figure how what our goal amounts are for college and retirement), and the like.

Basically I had no idea what to do and the board convinved me to just call them, and then Vanguard walked me thru everything.

[noodleoo]

Jul 11, 2019 8:52:40 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

Here's some info: investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-advisor

So I basically cold-called Vanguard and said I wanted to move my accounts there, and they assigned me a person to help me and now she's our personal advisor.

In your case, I think just check the website after you log in and see if you can find info about how to access the services.

Our advisor is available for questions via email/message; she made a written financial plan for us based on extensive discussion about our goals; she helped us come up with our goals (e.g., she helped figure how what our goal amounts are for college and retirement), and the like.

Basically I had no idea what to do and the board convinved me to just call them, and then Vanguard walked me thru everything.

Cool, thanks!  Does she advise you on assets outside of Vanguard?  I also have money at Fidelity that I should probably move.  Does she tell you how to invest it?  And is it free?  I don't think H has a Vanguard account, would we have to move his money over as well?  And will they advise on like our 401ks that are with our employers?

[ohgillian]

Jul 11, 2019 8:58:29 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Cool, thanks!  Does she advise you on assets outside of Vanguard?  I also have money at Fidelity that I should probably move.  Does she tell you how to invest it?  And is it free?  I don't think H has a Vanguard account, would we have to move his money over as well?  And will they advise on like our 401ks that are with our employers?

- She advises us on our assets outside of Vanguard - e.g., DH and I are both in work-sponsored retirement programs and she has looked thru the investment options for those programs and made a recommendation about which investments to choose so as to be consistent with our overall investment strategy. I sort of think she's not actually supposed to do that though? But she does.

- She has helped me get the right Vanguard people on the phone to move over assets as needed from other institutions. Vanguard has people whose whole job is to help you move your assets there. They help you figure out the paperwork, etc. and make it as easy as possible. 

- You wouldn't need to have assets in your H's name for you as a couple to use the Personal Advisor services, I don't think, but I think you'd have to be the contact. I.e., the planner can advise you about how to manage your assets as a couple, but your H couldn't just call in for advice b/c you'd be the account owner. If you have non-retirement accounts you could always add his name to the account.

- She tells us how to invest our money that's at Vanguard based on our long-, medium-, and short-term goals. The advice is very specific (i.e., she will walk me thru the steps on the website and tell me what fund symbol to type in, lol).

- It looks like the fee is 0.3%. Here's a good overview of how that compares: www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/vanguard-personal-advisor-services

- Finally, based on the link I just pasted in, it looks like services that are available vary based on the amount of $ you have there. It does say that you don't get a 'dedicated advisor' until you get to $500,000 at Vanguard. I always had that amount there so I haven't used their services where you don't have a dedicated advisor; hopefully someone else here can chime in.



ETA: noodleoo, I logged into my account and found this link about the personal advisor services and it confirms that you only need a minimum of $50,000 to use the services (even though you need $500 to have your own dedicated advisor). It also have a contact #; you may  need to be logged into vanguard for this link to work; I"m not sure. personal.vanguard.com/web/c1/financial-advisor/personal-advisor

[dcn]

We use them. We don’t have an assigned advisor, but everyone we have talked to has always been super knowledgeable and helpful. We only have a tsp outside of vanguard and they did recommend how to allocate contributions.

We initially called them because MIL passed away so H had a few different inheritances to deal with and we didn’t know how to start. The guy spent almost 2 hours on the phone with us, even called MIL’s advisor on a conference call with us to get info. Seriously walked us through step by step. And this was before we signed up for their personal advisory services.

The fees are worth it to us at this point because I could set it up and then monitor myself, but I just don’t have the bandwidth at this point with 2 small kids and other things. It’s 0.3% of your assets and worth it for us. We can call or email anytime, and they do a quarterly review and adjust as needed and send us the info.

[ohgillian]

Jul 11, 2019 9:30:01 GMT -5 dcn said:

We use them. We don’t have an assigned advisor, but everyone we have talked to has always been super knowledgeable and helpful. We only have a tsp outside of vanguard and they did recommend how to allocate contributions.

We initially called them because MIL passed away so H had a few different inheritances to deal with and we didn’t know how to start. The guy spent almost 2 hours on the phone with us, even called MIL’s advisor on a conference call with us to get info. Seriously walked us through step by step. And this was before we signed up for their personal advisory services.

The fees are worth it to us at this point because I could set it up and then monitor myself, but I just don’t have the bandwidth at this point with 2 small kids and other things. It’s 0.3% of your assets and worth it for us. We can call or email anytime, and they do a quarterly review and adjust as needed and send us the info.

Right, this too. They re-balance the investments as needed to stay in line with our goals, etc. 

I really regret I didn't move to Vanguard sooner. 

[kellygreen]

noodleoo , what did you decide to do? I ask because I am considering moving our funds to Vanguard. The "advisor" I was assigned to (and have an appointment with next week) has only been an advisor for 6 months or so which has me a bit worried.

ohgillian, is your advisor experienced > 6 months? 

[ohgillian]

Feb 20, 2020 18:57:36 GMT -5 kellygreen said:

noodleoo , what did you decide to do? I ask because I am considering moving our funds to Vanguard. The "advisor" I was assigned to (and have an appointment with next week) has only been an advisor for 6 months or so which has me a bit worried.

ohgillian , is your advisor experienced > 6 months? 

Hi - yes, she's been there about 13ish years, so she'd been there about 7 or 8 when I moved over. I will say that she was just randomly assigned to us and has been great.