I'm not sure if this is the place to post this, but there is no other area that seems to fit better.
A success story - my parents are in the midst of firing their financial advisor and becoming self-directed investors!
I've been on the MMM Money Train over the last 2 - 3 years. It has been really good - freeing. I've learned a lot. It has made me re-evaluate the typical societal norms associated with work and retirement, and my life priorities in general. One of the greatest benefits has been the increase savings for tomorrow, and the drive to take responsibility for my families savings. This has lead to a greater knowledge regarding investing-how-to. (I'm sure that many people on this forum can relate.) Now what has been really interesting, has been the sharing of some of this knowledge with family and friends that are open to hear about it. The most recent success...
My parents have very well paying jobs. The have accumulated a decent sized nest egg (over a million).*** Remarkably, they have done this having used a financial advisor over (at least) 25 years. Over the last month or two, I asked them questions about their fees associated with their financial advisor. Turns out, they are sitting at approximately 1.18% - it used to be far more than that. Mine are at 0.13%. Looking at performance over the last 2 years, they had returns of less than 2%. They wanted to know what my returns were - over 13%. My dad said that he has used this financial advisor because, just like having someone do his income tax/accounting, he is getting better value than if he was to do it himself. I was happy to give him some information to chew on.
It probably wouldn't surprise you then, that they started to see the light. It didn't take long for him to say, "Its time I take responsibility for my investments. In the last two years, my financial advisor was taking as much as I was contributing." Welcome to Questrade. Hello Vanguard ETFs.
If my parents, who are not technologically gifted, can do this with a bit of help - anyone can!
*** Their nest egg could have been significantly larger if they did not use this advisor. I'm scared to know how much they lost out on because of this FA.
