Financial health presentation today, 'brought to you by: Vanguard"

[cranilation]

My company is having a financial health presentation today, from Vanguard.  The topic is "Reduce Debt, Build Wealth, and Get Ahead"

I just started paying attention to my finances six months ago and this will be the first "sponsored" financial presentation I've attended.  My gut says that whoever is presenting to my office is thanking their lucky stars that they get a captive audience and will use the opportunity to swindle my coworkers as hard as they can.  But on the other hand, I hear that Vanguard is a decent investment company, and I'm pretty sure my organization has enough money to not be bribed.

So, any advice for what to watch out for, what to look for, or what to expect?  Thanks.

[Metta]

I just started paying attention to my finances six months ago and this will be the first "sponsored" financial presentation I've attended.  My gut says that whoever is presenting to my office is thanking their lucky stars that they get a captive audience and will use the opportunity to swindle my coworkers as hard as they can.  But on the other hand, I hear that Vanguard is a decent investment company, and I'm pretty sure my organization has enough money to not be bribed.

So, any advice for what to watch out for, what to look for, or what to expect?  Thanks.

I've been to several of Vanguard's presentations and they're pretty good, though very basic. Most of what they're trying to do is get people to invest in the company's 401K. I am not sure how your company's contract with Vanguard works but with mine Vanguard provided up to a certain number of educational seminars each year and after that we had to pay for them. They're not done by the sales department (unless something is different with your company's contract) but by Vanguard's educational department that specializes in this. So I think that your skepticism is probably excessive in this one instance. (But keep your skepticism!) I don't recall that they recommended anything other than index funds but I could be wrong. And they might have changed now that they have a set of target date funds.

My big disappointment with the talks is that they tended to be very basic and focused on one goal: retirement at the ordinary retirement age. However, even at that it was too much for some of my co-workers who told me that it was difficult.