# Financial Planner - What should I do??



## reccoso (Dec 16, 2010)

I'm a self-employed business person - my work takes up a lot of my time.

When it comes to investing personal funds - I have tried investing on my own with mixed results - I've read all the different couch potato portfolios etc etc I invested mainly in ETFs - the net result over the course of the year was positive - but I don't feel like I can stay on top of things along with my business.

SO...certified financial planners - I have come across a few - fees range from 1-2% of assets per years - I have met ones from places like CIBC Woodgundy etc who have a laddered cost - ie up to $500K they charge 1.75%, above $2m they charge 1%

What should I do - right now things are sitting in cash not doing much.

I asked my accountant about investment options, his response was to buy a home since I'm still renting - but should I really put all my eggs into that one basket?

Thanks


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

Couch potato only takes 15 minutes/year to stay on top of... I'm not sure why you don't feel you can stay on top of that?

I would personally not feel comfortable paying a percentage fee for someone to give me advice, when I know that by doing couch potato I can match the market for free. 

They say the real estate market is going to go down over the next few years, so I would probably hold off on buying a house if I were you.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

Base on my calculations a 1.75% drag on investment returns will delay achieving my financial goals by 8 years.

If that is acceptable to you, then by all means hand over the responsibility of your family's financial future to a stranger at the bank.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

I don't think time management is an issue. As a business person, one of the very basic skills is time management. Perhaps you simply don't want to take responsibility for your finance.

That's ok, lots of people will be happy to take that responsibility off your shoulders. I can do it for you. Just give me 1% of your networth year. What is your networth?


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Argh. 15 minutes a year? Maybe 15 minutes a quarter, once you fully know what you're doing. And that either assumes you do NO monitoring between quarters, or that you discount all the monitoring you do in your 15-minute estimate, and also that you never review or second-guess your decisions ("you know, maybe I should choose the hedged version of that ETF, or at least revisit my rationale for not doing so").

I always feel like those comparisons are a bit like saying "maintaining your fitness takes only minutes a day!" Yes, but if you are obese and out of shape, "minutes a day" isn't going to cut it for you; the level of effort required is greater. 

If you don't know what you are doing financially and don't have confidence in your decisions, then it is going to take more than 15 minutes per year to figure that stuff out. It might take 15 minutes (or some other short period of time, I still think "15 minutes" is an unrealistic estimate) once you are fully up to speed, but the OP isn't there yet!


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

That's nice of you slacker :biggrin: Great reply MoneyGal.


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

MoneyGal said:


> Argh. 15 minutes a year? Maybe 15 minutes a quarter, once you fully know what you're doing. And that either assumes you do NO monitoring between quarters, or that you discount all the monitoring you do in your 15-minute estimate, and also that you never review or second-guess your decisions ("you know, maybe I should choose the hedged version of that ETF, or at least revisit my rationale for not doing so").
> 
> I always feel like those comparisons are a bit like saying "maintaining your fitness takes only minutes a day!" Yes, but if you are obese and out of shape, "minutes a day" isn't going to cut it for you; the level of effort required is greater.
> 
> If you don't know what you are doing financially and don't have confidence in your decisions, then it is going to take more than 15 minutes per year to figure that stuff out. It might take 15 minutes (or some other short period of time, I still think "15 minutes" is an unrealistic estimate) once you are fully up to speed, but the OP isn't there yet!


+1

Absolutely agree. I still think the time is worth the 1%. The point is that you ARE second guessing your choices. The advisor, not so much! The big thing I think is to have a good accountant/tax advisor.


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

When I said 15 minutes a year, I assumed taking a pre-set couch potato portfolio (more than 15 minutes to choose this, I agree) and then spending 15 minutes a year to rebalance. Couch potato implies you do no monitoring between quarters and you never review or second guess your decisions. That's how I operated for years. It worked well enough. 

Recently I developed an interest in trying to improve my returns by investing more actively, and nowadays I certainly spend more than 15 minutes/year on my non-couch potato portfolio. But for the couch potato, I chose the 20/20/20/40 e-series portfolio and spent 15 minutes rebalancing it every January.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

We say that time = money, so I find the focus on how little time this strategy takes, a little irrational if not contradictory even. 

Do you ever think that perhaps you are losing money as a result of your limited efforts?

Learning should be encouraged, rather than limiting it to the most minimum possible per year. You don't necessarily have to become an active investor per se, as in buying/selling/trading, etc., but it doesn't mean that *your money *deserves such little attention from you.

How is it that people seem to have very good time management skills for finding hours upon hours to watch garbage television/being on various social forums, etc., but God forbid they should spend it reviewing their investments a few hours per quarter!


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MG, I totally agree that 15 minutes is not realistic. However, given the cost of investment advice, you're probably better off hiring a housecleaner and use the time you would have spent vacuuming and cleaning your shower on managing your investments.


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

I think the time=money equation works for labour situations but not so much for investing. I would say that I have likely spent thousands (and thousands!) of hours in becoming educated in economics, finance and investing but it has all led me back to index/passive/low cost/couch potato style investing. I would say that the evidence from the likes of Kahneman, Tversky, Zweig and many others is both compelling and mounting. So is the evidence with respect to this style of investing compared to more active approaches. For the average person to pay Canada's ridiculous mutual fund MERs or even for the more affluent to surrender 1+% of funds under management yearly seems almost criminal. This is not to say that some active funds and some individuals with stock picking approaches (which can actually be quite low cost) can't and don't do better it's just that on average they don't and most of the general public doesn't have the aptitude or the time for such endeavours. I think many have said that index investing is less about becoming rich than it is about not becoming poor! This may be a bit of a disservice as it has made many people rich but the gist, I think, is correct. 

The great majority of my money is invested couch potato style but that doesn't meant that I don't watch it like a hawk. It also doesn't mean that I don't have some money that doesn't get invested in individual companies. The active v passive discussion will continue forever of course. Living below your means I think almost everyone will agree on. (I hope!)


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

andrewf said:


> MG, I totally agree that 15 minutes is not realistic. However, given the cost of investment advice, you're probably better off hiring a housecleaner and use the time you would have spent vacuuming and cleaning your shower on managing your investments.



+1. Yes this is definitely another way to go. But I agree with MG and would rather do my own house cleaning (and I do so love mowing the lawn!) and spend some of that 'wasted' time on managing my investments. The time wasted on TV/surfing is huge and while people will say that is their time to de-stress, I think it would be easy to argue that the time wasted just adds to their stress level!


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> given the cost of investment advice, you're probably better off hiring a housecleaner and use the time you would have spent vacuuming and cleaning your shower on managing your investments.


$20,000.00 (1% of 2M or 1.75% of 1.14M) would pay for a lot of housecleaning in a year.. there might even be some left over to pay for somebody to shovel out the driveway or mow the lawn 
Even with a 50K portfolio, the $875 saved could buy you enough time to DIY with couch potato once a year


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

uptoolate said:


> The time wasted on TV/surfing is huge and while people will say that is their time to de-stress, I think it would be easy to argue that the time wasted just adds to their stress level!


Yeah, good point, I for one spend far too much time online on the forums, playing chess, monitoring my investments, gaming, watching downloadable media etc lately, this technology, although fun, is like a black hole for wasting time; I really should go back to reading more books again.


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## reccoso (Dec 16, 2010)

mrPPincer said:


> $20,000.00 (1% of 2M or 1.75% of 1.14M) would pay for a lot of housecleaning in a year.. there might even be some left over to pay for somebody to shovel out the driveway or mow the lawn
> Even with a 50K portfolio, the $875 saved could buy you enough time to DIY with couch potato once a year


Thanks for the responses - I'm assuming there's almost unanimous consensus here that a wealth manager cannot get you better returns than a semi-intelligent investor can on their own.

However, there are many many people who have such managers take care of their funds - are they all wrong? Just a question.

And what if the wealth manager can bring you more money than what you could b yourself - Despite say a $10-20000 fee on their end, if you make an extra $10K after those fees, and you wouldn't have without them - isn't that worth it?

I haven't made up my mind either way - but I do believe having someone who's expertise is investments and who can follow things on a much more regular basis than you can only help.

FWIW, some higher net worth individuals that I know who do use wealth managers - are still highly invested in bonds - rightly or wrongly - they must have a lower risk tolerance. Such people could probably just pull their money, put it in bonds themselves and save themselves the 1-2% fee.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

Well, people who frequent this forum is biased towards taking an interest in managing their own money. So the opinions will strongly trend towards DIY.

But your post exhibit all the symptoms of not wanting to take responsibility of your money, and instead want an expert to do it for you.

1. The money manager at the bank is not an expert. He took a course and got certified in a couple of months.
2. The money manager at the bank is not really a money manager at all. His primary training is sales. The more financial product he sells, the more money he makes.
3. The money manager at the bank will not be looking at your portfolio any more frequently than you will.
4. The money manager at the bank will not care about your money any more than you will.
5. The money manager at the bank is an average money manager, which by definition means that he will only be able to bring you average market return (minus the 1.75% fee that he charges). Sure, in the vast pool of money managers, there are winners and losers, just like stocks. You will not be able to pick who is the winner ahead of time.

This is not to say that you should not seek financial advice. But the folks at your local retail bank (CIBC, RBC, BMO, TD, etc.) are not the right people.

Even for the seasoned DIY investors, they could use a consultation session on a flat-fee basis with reputable financial advisors.


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

Two of my employers use wealth managers and they both have net assets in the tens of millions.
To my knowledge all of my immediate family still use those high mer mutual funds.

In my circle of friends only one does DIY and he lets a wealth manager run half of it, but only because it's his brother, and it does irritate him a lot because every year the DIY part outperforms the part run by his brother by quite a bit.

Imo they could all most likely get better returns with DIY but I don't keep harping on about it because most people seem to find it a stressful subject and could not be bothered.. I just come here to vent instead (sorry :apologetic: )


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

> However, there are many many people who have such managers take care of their funds - are they all wrong? Just a question.


Potentially, yes. Or, they're getting a better rate than you to manage their funds. Say, 1% instead of 2%. That makes a huge difference.



> And what if the wealth manager can bring you more money than what you could b yourself - Despite say a $10-20000 fee on their end, if you make an extra $10K after those fees, and you wouldn't have without them - isn't that worth it?


That's not how it works, though. Wealth managers need to be paid whether you are making money or not. If you run into a 10 year window of low returns, say 2% a year, they'll need their 2% a year to pay the bills, and you'll be left with 0%, less in fact after inflation.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

On an after-fee return basis, the average wealth manager will not be able to do better than a DIY investor.

Though obviously, a high performing wealth manager can outperform an average DIY investor. But the trick is that you will not be able to pick out who is the high perform wealth manager ahead of time.

I chose my words carefully here, because there are services that a high end wealth management firm can provide that the average DIY investor will not be able to do. I'm talking about high networth individuals here. Tax planning, estate planning, exotic hedge funds, etc.


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

'Are they all wrong?' 

No they definitely aren't all wrong. It depends on many things. Certainly if you aren't going to manage things at all then it is likely better to have a 'good' manager in charge than to keep the money in your mattress or bury it in the back yard. (Although this is not always true!) The problem is finding a good manager and due to the investment industry's extreme reluctance to commit to being fiduciaries it all seems like a crap shoot (and one with loaded dice at that).

I find it amazing the many of the HNWIs I know do pay 1% on AUM for things they could easily do themselves but to each their own. The investment industry has spent billions of dollars convincing Joe Average that this is an incredibly complex undertaking that there is no way he/she can handle and the money seems to have been generally well spent.

As far as the rich being highly invested in bonds, they may be or maybe they are not. Most people aren't that open with their financial position (especially the rich!). It may also be that they are taking Bill Bernstein's advice to some extent, 'why keep playing the game if you've already won?'.


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## zylon (Oct 27, 2010)

reccoso said:


> When it comes to investing personal funds - I have tried investing on my own with mixed results - I've read all the different couch potato portfolios etc etc I invested mainly in ETFs - the net result over the course of the year was positive - but I don't feel like I can stay on top of things along with my business.


If you're interested in couch potato, I have a real-time, although not real money example.

I set up the following portfolio in three stages in 2001
- I forget the reason why I did it in three stages
- have also forgotten the model name this portfolio had at the time

original investment: 4 ETFs $37,500 each = $150,000
rebalanced every January after the previous year's distributions have arrived
to keep things simple I used dollar amounts instead of units when rebalancing
no transaction costs or commissions were included
total return to date is $64,880 ~ approx 43%
2012 distributions were $5,207 ~ 3.5% yield on original cost
rebalancing takes less than 15 minutes and far less time than it took to lay this out



















*Chart, table, and data from theglobeandmail.com*


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

A recent interview about the financial planning profession from the Canadian Couch Potato Site.

http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/01/04/an-interview-with-john-de-goey/


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

slacker said:


> I chose my words carefully here, because *there are services that a high end wealth management firm can provide that the average DIY investor will not be able to do. I'm talking about high networth individuals here. Tax planning, estate planning*, exotic hedge funds, etc.


Bolded for truthiness. Especially when you have a lot of unregistered funds, and if you start income-splitting via trusts, corporations, etc. you (likely) need professional advice, and that's what those firms are providing.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

uptoolate said:


> 1. I think the time=money equation works for labour situations but not so much for investing.
> 2. I would say that I have likely spent thousands (and thousands!) of hours in becoming educated in economics, finance and investing but *it has all led me back to index/passive/low cost/couch potato style investing.*


*1.* We'll agree to disagree!

*2.* I wasn't arguing the couch potato strategy, or any evidence for that matter, to each his own! What I was saying is that all DIY investors should show more interest & make time for their investments, especially in the beginning in order to become more knowledgeable, that's all. 

I often read [not just on the forum], how the strategy requires little time, effort, risk, etc., and I think that is the wrong message to send, especially to new investors.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Toronto.gal said:


> I often read [not just on the forum], how the strategy requires little time, effort, risk, etc., and I think that is the wrong message to send, especially to new investors.


I so agree with this point! 

One of the most useful things I've learned in life is that people often make bad decisions because they haven't correctly framed the problem they're solving [I'm not referring here to anyone on this forum or anything in this thread]. 

People tend to want to go straight to the solution without thinking what problem they're really trying to solve. For instance, if you have issues with storing and accessing data, someone might say the problem is "We need a new database." _But that's not the problem, that's the solution_. 

Passive investing can be great. I'm mostly a passive investor (but I spend much more than 15 minutes a year thinking about/monitoring/rebalancing my portfolio, partly because I trade actively as well, and partly out of personal interest - I haven't tried to become the most efficient investor possible, or even particularly efficient at all). 

Working with a paid financial advisor can also work well, and apparently does for many, many people, in their own estimations. Now, passive investors can look at them and say, "but working with a paid advisor costs more! and you are unlikely to outperform a passive portfolio!" -- and while those are both undisputeably true statements, this does not mean that passive investing is a solution for the original poster, reccoso, any more than it is for all of the people who work with paid advisors. 

This is not intended to be a criticism of the discussion in this thread; it just strikes me that when we roll out the benefits of passive investing, we aren't necessarily connecting with the things that actually solve problems for people. The OP says that he doesn't have time to monitor his investments, and he's unsure about overall asset allocation ("house versus investments"), and it sounds like he doesn't know what the possible options are for him...other than potentially passive or active investing on his own, or with/through an advisor (presumably using retail mutual funds). IMO the next step is to figure out what the range of alternatives are, and then go from there. Right?


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

Toronto.gal said:


> *1.* We'll agree to disagree!
> 
> *2.* I wasn't arguing the couch potato strategy, or any evidence for that matter, to each his own! What I was saying is that all DIY investors should show more interest & make time for their investments, especially in the beginning in order to become more knowledgeable, that's all.
> 
> I often read [not just on the forum], how the strategy requires little time, effort, risk, etc., and I think that is the wrong message to send, especially to new investors.


1. So we agree then! :encouragement:

2. I agree with you here. Everyone should take more of an interest in their financial future. The educated DIY investor (among all small investors) is most likely to be successful in picking specific products and companies while ironically, the less educated are much less likely to wind up with the passive approach which would most likely serve them best. I wasn't really arguing for the passive approach either just saying that that is what my years of 'education' has brought me to. As you say to each their own.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

Wrong.

The OP already set his frame of using a financial advisor, not for any good reason other than that's what everyone he knows is using. See the title of this thread.

He is doing his due diligence, in asking questions though. To which we quite rightly try to show the alternatives.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

So reccoso, what have you learned from this thread so far? Has anything struck a chord.

With $20k, I would put off a house purchase. In fact I would try something like TD e-series as a way to begin understanding the investment process. Start with $5k in each of four funds.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

andrewf said:


> MG, I totally agree that 15 minutes is not realistic. However, given the cost of investment advice, you're probably better off hiring a housecleaner and use the time you would have spent vacuuming and cleaning your shower on managing your investments.


OMG I love this quote! Ha never thought of it like this!


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## reccoso (Dec 16, 2010)

kcowan said:


> So reccoso, what have you learned from this thread so far? Has anything struck a chord.
> 
> With $20k, I would put off a house purchase. In fact I would try something like TD e-series as a way to begin understanding the investment process. Start with $5k in each of four funds.


Well to be honest, I had given the whole DIY investing ala couch potato about 2 years ago with a lot more than 20k for about a year. Did below average. But at least didn't lose money. Now the numbers to invest are higher, so there's more to loose. I think I'll gingerly step back in with the DIY and maybe split some between myself and a manager just to see. I don't want to see money sitting idly, but I'd still prefer that to loosing it. 

Another question, at what rate is the value of cash being depreciated? Inflation? What is that right now?


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## 44545 (Feb 14, 2012)

reccoso said:


> Thanks for the responses - I'm assuming there's almost unanimous consensus here that a wealth manager cannot get you better returns than a semi-intelligent investor can on their own.
> ...


I haven't read the whole thread so if some of my comments are redundant or the questions answered, please disregard.

Active management, over the long run, has been demonstrated to NOT outperform passive indexing. (if we're discussing actively managed mutual or exchange traded funds) Actively managed funds actually under perform, over the long run, perhaps having a few hot years then losing all the gains they made.

Pick up a copy of "The Investor's Manifesto" for more details on this. Ignore the USA-based portfolio specific advice. A copy of MoneySense Canada's "Guide to the Perfect Portfolio" will give you what you need to structure a Canadian domiciled index fund portfolio.

Where I believe an advisor can be useful are areas like tax efficiency, estate planning etc.

My opinion? Pay a flat-fee-only advisor to "set you up" and then implement the plan yourself. The difference between this and a 1% per year advisor is that you don't get the same level of hand-holding and you will have to invest some time executing the plan.

DON'T GET NEAR PLACES LIKE "INVESTORS GROUP"! They'll be happy to have you sit in a big, comfy leather chair, have a nice assistant in a short skirt bring you an orange-mocha-frappacino, tell you all kinds of wonderful stories and milk you for 2.75% per year.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/12/01/ok-investors-group-now-the-gloves-are-off/

I'd avoid the likes of CIBC Wood-Gundy, Manulife and any of the major banks' so-called "advisory" services which are really marketing companies pushing their own funds.

For 1% per year, I'll do the leg work myself, though I don't mind paying a single upfront fee to steer me in the right direction.



reccoso said:


> Well to be honest, I had given the whole DIY investing ala couch potato about 2 years ago with a lot more than 20k for about a year. Did below average...


What was your benchmark?

The best you're going to do with passive, index investing is "market return" - which is better than 80% of actively managed funds.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

CJOttawa said:


> My opinion? Pay a flat-fee-only advisor to "set you up" and then implement the plan yourself. The difference between this and a 1% per year advisor is that you don't get the same level of hand-holding and you will have to invest some time executing the plan.


While I have no disagreement with this advice in principle, I'm really not sure how it is supposed to work in practice. 

This list of fee-only and fee-for-service financial planners (at MoneySense http://www.moneysense.ca/2012/10/01/where-to-find-a-fee-only-financial-planner/) is pretty long, but you will see that the cost for an initial plan may be many thousands of dollars, and every time a listing includes the phrase "account minimum" with a number after it, that means the advisor will work with you on a fee-only or fee-for-service basis _if they are also managing your money_. (Disclaimer: I know many of the people on that list.)

The phrase "licensed to sell investment products" is also very important (for an investment plan, as opposed to a "financial plan")...if the advisor is not licensed to sell investment products in their jurisdiction, _they are not able to provide comments on a client's holdings beyond asset allocation_. They cannot comment on holding/selling/trading any specific funds, stocks, bonds, etc. 

So what the OP would be looking for, in order to implement this advice, is a fee-for-service advisor who is licensed to sell investment products, and does not require the transfer of the OP's assets to his or her management in order to prepare a one-time plan. I scanned through that list and made it to the "M"s before I stopped - I found one listing for someone who is both licensed to sell (i.e., comment on a client's investments, beyond a generic "asset allocation") and who does not provide an account minimum, and an initial financial plan ranged from $2K-$5K. 

And unless that person proposed a couch potato/passive portfolio, this isn't a one-time deal. Right? So now what are the frictional costs, and are they "worth it"?

Do I think this advice, to find a fee-for-service planner, is "bad?" No. But I think it is largely impractical. I think the last time I ranted on this topic I said this advice was essentially saying, "just find a unicorn!" I don't think the solution is to use a paid advisor. I do think this is another example of proposing a solution that has a relatively low probability of success.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

slacker said:


> Wrong......See the title of this thread.


Keep in mind that not all responses are directed at the OP and/or the title of the thread, but at comments others may have made [which was the case here].


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## Belguy (May 24, 2010)

I have told the story too many times about my last financial advisor, who I ended up firing, who traded me in and out of high fee managed mutual funds and who ended up making more off of my money than I did. One day, after a particularly disappointing meeting with him, we went out to the parking lot and he asked me how I liked his new Lexus. That did it for me and I have done my own investing, using the 'Couch Potato' approach, ever since and have never regretted it. At least nobody else is getting rich off of my money now!! Just establish an asset allocation that you can live with and that is appropriate for your own particular circumstance, timeline, and risk tolerance. That is the first and most important task that you must perform. After that, invest in a brief portfolio of four or five of the lowest fee, broadest based ETF's according to your target asset allocation. I would suggest some of the Vanguard Canada offerings. Then, periodically rebalance your portfolio whenever it gets seriously out of whack with your original target allocation. Don't try to second guess yourself and never buy or sell out of a sense of panic no matter what the markets do in the short term. Just remain confident in your own carefully thought out original target asset allocation.

If you follow this strategy, you will outperform the vast majority of other investors over the long term and you will keep most of your money from falling into the hands of the financial services industry.

Over time, fees really do add up and have a serious negative long term affect on the ultimate quality of your retirement.

It's your money and so you owe it to yourself to take an interest in it. The 'Couch Potato' approach really requires very little of your time when compared with actively trading individual stocks and odds are that you will end up being very well rewarded by your 'lazy' method of investing where you are not called upon to constantly second guess yourself and end up buying high and selling low which is the bain of most investors who try to manage their own portfolios of individual stocks.

Buy, hold and prosper.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

reccoso said:


> ...
> 
> Another question, at what rate is the value of cash being depreciated? Inflation? What is that right now?


Bookmark this page for future reference.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/price-indexes/cpi/


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## reccoso (Dec 16, 2010)

slacker said:


> Bookmark this page for future reference.
> 
> http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/price-indexes/cpi/


Thanks. 

Btw, a bit off topic here - the deadline for 2012 RRSP contributions is February-something. If my 2012 RRSP is already maxed out, and I want to move money in for 2013 RRSP now, is there the possibility that it'll instead be allocated as over-contribution for 2012??

Is it better just to wait until the 2012 RRSP deadline has passed us and then contribute?


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

You can designate all contributions in the first 60 days of the calendar year to either the previous calendar year or the current one.


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## hystat (Jun 18, 2010)

If someone wants to learn "couch potato" portfolio self-construction and self-management, is there a live course one can take in Ontario?
I struggle with DIY books. I would like to pay someone to teach me. Someone who I can see face to face. That's how I learn.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I have 2 financial intermediaries. One is a fund guy at CIBCWG who specializes in funds from the Far East. The other is a broker at Canaccord. The fund guy has about 1/7 of my portfolio and I will be phasing him out over the next two years. But he has been good in an area where I had no knowledge or interest. The broker is in tune with mining companies in Canada. He replaced a guy who I had selected and was very pleased with (took the same bus to work, researched companies personally, invited me to CEO conferences, invested in the same companies) who retired last year. The new guy is a traditional broker, trying to churn my account for fees and selling me whatever Canaccord was pushing. He has 1/20 of the portfolio. I will keep him around for the mining knowledge. You have to talk to these guys every week or they will forget about you.

My point is that there may be a role for such people as long as you know what you are doing. Mining can still produce 10 baggers but not very often anymore. Maybe one in 10.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

*Pondering the fee based WoodGundy option*

Like the original poster, I am busy with my job, as well as family responsibilities with my kids, who are still in middle school

I am strongly considering going with the fee based appoach.

I consider myself a modestly financially literate middle class retail investor.

I regularly read daily financial press, monthly periodicals, and books, and review my statements.

I am geting watch lists together more serously than I have in the past for individual stock purchase candidates. 

I am not opposed to couch potato approaches. I have indexed in the past, even way back with things called TIPS, but I feel for the next while the market is likely to be sliding sideways, and active manangement may be a better place to place some of my money for this period. 

We have about $600K with our WG advisor in 2x rrsp's, 2x tfas, a resp, and a non registered account. No shelter is left with unused contribution room.

We also have about $225K with stock in the company I am a partner in, which is a CCPC, which the company has one broker (not my WG guy) set up to hold this stock as a RRSP.

We also have about $150k in GRSP's at our employers.

We have a mortage free home. 

We currently pour about $40K new money into investment every year, above the mandated GRSP's at work. 

We are aiming to allow me and my wife to step back from full time work in less than a decade. 


The funds at WG are in mutual funds and some individual stocks. I am not upset with the MF's I am in or their perforance, but as always, a lower MER would be nice.

Going fee based if I fall in at 1.5% I think the outcome would be good for me. 

The fee would be $9k/year 

I am at a 43% marginal tax rate, so I should see $3.87K less taxes /year.

No RSP fees saves $0.25k /year.

Going from A class funds to F class has a savings of $6k /year. 

The fee based option gives me something like 100 no commission trades a year.
I currently have about $2.5-3k in commissions per year. Like I said, much more than an online broker, but I consider it money not totally badly spent.

I have looked at online brokers, and have used Scotia's discount operation in the past.
I do find the ability to bounce my ideas off for my broker to be worthwhile.

He comes up with some stocks that he has to push as IPO product, and sometimes I give it a go, or buy them a few years down the road once the worst of the initail bad shakes have beeen looked to be worked out. 

Am I nuts or have others looked at this sort of option and gone with it?

What is the down side I am not seeing?


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