Author Topic: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?  (Read 2643 times)

alcon835

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Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« on: October 11, 2021, 12:00:01 PM »
Personal Capital is aggressively marketing at me to do one of their free expert consultations. I've read about their overall service and while I am not opposed to what they do, I don't need it. My strategy is sound and I am doing exceptionally well financially. Still, their free service saves me a lot of time not having to manually track all my investments and assets and I feel somewhat bad not throwing them a bone.

What does everyone thing? Worth the risk of them doubling down? Would they be more angry having me do a "free consultation" without any plans to actually go with their service? Should I just keep ignoring these constant emails, pop-ups, and phone calls and enjoy the free service?



yachi

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2021, 12:18:37 PM »
If it makes you feel any better, you *did* just advertise their services to a good target audience.  My spouse said 'OK' to one of those door-to-door window sales guys giving us a presentation.  I would have been interested in what types of windows could be used where in our house, but that wasn't even part of it, the presentation was all fluff and sale, with little good content.

I used to track accounts in Mint, but it was a pain - money would routinely get double counted, once as an expenditure, and again as a credit card payment.  Investments were an OK level of accuracy but it didn't do well with all options.

You probably know you don't want their paid services, you should just ignore their constant asking.

boarder42

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2021, 12:52:53 PM »
They are fun to talk to and i got 200 bucks for about 30 total minutes of my time.  I don't disagree with their management philosophy i just don't need someone to manage it for me and most people here shouldnt either.  But i'm the type of guy who'll go to a timeshare presentation to pick up 200 bucks for 3 hours of time between my wife and i.

alcon835

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2021, 03:38:23 PM »
They are fun to talk to and i got 200 bucks for about 30 total minutes of my time.  I don't disagree with their management philosophy i just don't need someone to manage it for me and most people here shouldnt either.  But i'm the type of guy who'll go to a timeshare presentation to pick up 200 bucks for 3 hours of time between my wife and i.

This was the thing that is getting me, it's $200 bucks for an hour of my time. That's a pretty good ROI!


RWD

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #6 on: October 11, 2021, 05:11:19 PM »
Don't bother. They just want to sell you things.

There have been some threads on this before:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/personal-capital-99427/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/just-had-a-personal-capital-consultation-my-thoughts/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/should-i-use-personal-capital-advisory-services/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/complimentary-financial-consultation-personal-capital/

See, I went searching for some of these and couldn't find them. These links are extremely helpful! Thank you!

No problem! Pro tip, use "site:" with Google to search a specific site, e.g.: "personal capital consultation site:forum.mrmoneymustache.com".

joe189man

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2022, 02:55:04 PM »
I just did a call with them today to chat about things, we have a follow up next week so they can show me their proposed plan. PC can now "manage" your 401k if you want and all for the cost of 0.49%, for assets under $1 million its 0.89%, over its 0.79%. I asked for an explicit break down of why these fees are worth it for next weeks call.

The advisor was pushing the tax planning benefits quite a bit and also was talking about some of the pitfalls of index funds and how and when the buy stocks in market cycle. The advisor was on board with SCV though so at least there is that. I will post a follow up after their presentation next week, they did say that we can implement the plan on our own if we want or pay to have them do it for us.

maisymouser

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2022, 03:36:10 PM »
They are fun to talk to and i got 200 bucks for about 30 total minutes of my time.  I don't disagree with their management philosophy i just don't need someone to manage it for me and most people here shouldnt either.  But i'm the type of guy who'll go to a timeshare presentation to pick up 200 bucks for 3 hours of time between my wife and i.

This was the thing that is getting me, it's $200 bucks for an hour of my time. That's a pretty good ROI!

Did I miss something here? Is PC paying people to pitch them their services?

alcon835

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2022, 05:11:42 PM »
They are fun to talk to and i got 200 bucks for about 30 total minutes of my time.  I don't disagree with their management philosophy i just don't need someone to manage it for me and most people here shouldnt either.  But i'm the type of guy who'll go to a timeshare presentation to pick up 200 bucks for 3 hours of time between my wife and i.

This was the thing that is getting me, it's $200 bucks for an hour of my time. That's a pretty good ROI!

Did I miss something here? Is PC paying people to pitch them their services?

If you have over $250k in accounts that PC can manage, they'll periodically offer you $200 to chat with their advisor for a 1-hour session.

As the amount in PC goes up, the offers get more aggressive.

The Hin

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2022, 07:50:00 AM »
I wonder if there's any way to signal to PC that you'd be willing to get that $200 offer? I have lots of money that PC could hope to (but will not) manage.

alcon835

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #11 on: April 15, 2022, 09:35:11 AM »
I wonder if there's any way to signal to PC that you'd be willing to get that $200 offer? I have lots of money that PC could hope to (but will not) manage.

I find they do it in waves. Like once or twice a year I'll start getting pestered about it. They'll push on it for a month or two and then back off.

I noticed a BIG push once I had $500k net worth.

maisymouser

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #12 on: April 23, 2022, 09:03:37 AM »
Funny enough, I just got the $100 for a half hour of my time offer after posting here. Well worth it. The sales guy wasn't even too pushy. I was prepared for a timeshare type of pitch situation.

I have even more incentive to reach 500k NW now!! That was some easy money.

joe189man

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2022, 03:09:41 PM »
Just had my sales call with Personal Capital this afternoon, interesting, here are some details. the basic gist is they recommend a proactive rebalancing strategy along with a specific asset allocation, ~80% stocks with a mix of emerging, developing and US, ~10% alternatives, and ~9% bonds. (in a follow up i will post the sector breakouts) Large Cap is weighted 2-3x over mid and small cap in that breakdown for stocks, which is one area of concern for me, i would prefer more SCV. They also recommend specific sector allocations so balancing your portfolio to the preferred amounts, not just be all SP500 which would overweight you in technology, healthcare and financial. The way I interpreted the info was as presented, the alternatives and bonds are only there to support the rebalancing which would happen as they determine necessary and not on a specified schedule. this could be quite often. As stated somewhere above, they can manage your 401k for 0.49% and taxable assets under $1 million for 0.89% which drops by 0.1% per million to 5 million.

They assume 1% tax optimization savings, .2% rebalancing, 0.39% smart weighting and a subjective 1.54% on behavioral coaching. So a 1.6-3.1% increase in return vs a cost of 0.57-.97%. i need to go to portfolio charts and play with this asset allocation vs a SCV/LTT option to see if the PC AA worth it. Its interesting that they "give" you the above info on their AA, so if you like that approach you can try and implement it yourself or have them do it for you.

alcon835

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2022, 05:35:31 PM »
Just had my sales call with Personal Capital this afternoon, interesting, here are some details. the basic gist is they recommend a proactive rebalancing strategy along with a specific asset allocation, ~80% stocks with a mix of emerging, developing and US, ~10% alternatives, and ~9% bonds. (in a follow up i will post the sector breakouts) Large Cap is weighted 2-3x over mid and small cap in that breakdown for stocks, which is one area of concern for me, i would prefer more SCV. They also recommend specific sector allocations so balancing your portfolio to the preferred amounts, not just be all SP500 which would overweight you in technology, healthcare and financial. The way I interpreted the info was as presented, the alternatives and bonds are only there to support the rebalancing which would happen as they determine necessary and not on a specified schedule. this could be quite often. As stated somewhere above, they can manage your 401k for 0.49% and taxable assets under $1 million for 0.89% which drops by 0.1% per million to 5 million.

They assume 1% tax optimization savings, .2% rebalancing, 0.39% smart weighting and a subjective 1.54% on behavioral coaching. So a 1.6-3.1% increase in return vs a cost of 0.57-.97%. i need to go to portfolio charts and play with this asset allocation vs a SCV/LTT option to see if the PC AA worth it. Its interesting that they "give" you the above info on their AA, so if you like that approach you can try and implement it yourself or have them do it for you.

That's really interesting, and a complex approach. More complex than I'm interested in. I guess that's the point though - the present a complex approach and list it as valuable.

I'd be curious to hear how the approach is working right now. How it worked in 2018, and how it worked during the hyper inflation of the last few years - all compared to the S&P 500 or a Vanguard Total Stock Market fund.

joe189man

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Re: Should I do Personal Capital's free consultation?
« Reply #15 on: May 02, 2022, 10:52:32 AM »
Just had my sales call with Personal Capital this afternoon, interesting, here are some details. the basic gist is they recommend a proactive rebalancing strategy along with a specific asset allocation, ~80% stocks with a mix of emerging, developing and US, ~10% alternatives, and ~9% bonds. (in a follow up i will post the sector breakouts) Large Cap is weighted 2-3x over mid and small cap in that breakdown for stocks, which is one area of concern for me, i would prefer more SCV. They also recommend specific sector allocations so balancing your portfolio to the preferred amounts, not just be all SP500 which would overweight you in technology, healthcare and financial. The way I interpreted the info was as presented, the alternatives and bonds are only there to support the rebalancing which would happen as they determine necessary and not on a specified schedule. this could be quite often. As stated somewhere above, they can manage your 401k for 0.49% and taxable assets under $1 million for 0.89% which drops by 0.1% per million to 5 million.

They assume 1% tax optimization savings, .2% rebalancing, 0.39% smart weighting and a subjective 1.54% on behavioral coaching. So a 1.6-3.1% increase in return vs a cost of 0.57-.97%. i need to go to portfolio charts and play with this asset allocation vs a SCV/LTT option to see if the PC AA worth it. Its interesting that they "give" you the above info on their AA, so if you like that approach you can try and implement it yourself or have them do it for you.

That's really interesting, and a complex approach. More complex than I'm interested in. I guess that's the point though - the present a complex approach and list it as valuable.

I'd be curious to hear how the approach is working right now. How it worked in 2018, and how it worked during the hyper inflation of the last few years - all compared to the S&P 500 or a Vanguard Total Stock Market fund.

The way it was described to me, right now as the approximate baskets of investment options becomes out of wack, as in the S&P falling or bonds rising or financials dropping or Tech rising - adjustments are made as necessary to keep all target allocations with in a band of appropriate allocation. Selling stocks at highs to increase bonds/alts. and buying stocks with bonds/alts. as markets drop not on a set annual rebalance schedule but as determined by the software. I will review their presentation again and chime in later with more info