@mountainwesttax
Assuming retirement at 65, it's 9.77% if she's 35, 8.31% if she's 30, or 7.24% if she's 25, none of which are intrinsically unfeasible. Have at the optimism!*
*Albeit this is all far more optimistic than I'd build a financial plan around.
There is a 100% chance that unlicensed and unqualified people on the internet selling unregulated "financial education" courses are making numbers up, misleading you, and are not accountable to anyone when their "educational material" doesn't pan out.
I recently saved a retiree from rolling his entire TSP into a FIA with a 4.5% cap. The agent selling it, in an attempt to keep the sale, said it was "unethical of [me] to give advice on what he'd already advised on." Imagine a world in which second opinions are "unethical."
Every year, 1 million CPA & EAs are reported missing by their families during tax season. For a simple one-time upload of your W2, 1099s, and other tax reporting documents *early* in the tax season, you might help reduce that number. You have the power to make a difference.
A client cried at the presentation of their financial plan tonight. Immediate retirement as an option instead of in 2 years ("21 months, 8 days" as she put it.)
We make a difference, it's not always measured in dollars.
I want to grow my practice into a larger firm. Not for income or to be a "bigger boss," but because I want to create as many salaried learning-first-no-sales points of entry into the profession as possible.
@chrisdcloud
30 years experience? Financial Advisor.
10 years experience? Financial Advisor.
3 years experience? Financial advisor.
College student on an internship with a life insurance license they got last week? Financial advisor.
You'd be better off hiring a financial planner for a high AUM fee from twenty-one and on than waiting until you're sixty to bargain shop and figure out how much of an opportunity cost the last thirty-nine years has been.
Give me the confidence of a mediocre man when he's wrong but thinks he's right. Says "that's the math" and does the math wrong, ignores multiple risk factors, and repeats the utterly untenable 12% rate of return lie. What an utter clown.
From the Ramsey Show (November 2, 2023):
This disturbing video rant from Dave Ramsey demonstrates an ongoing ignorance of safe withdrawal rates and sequence of returns risk, plus a combative insistence on using 12% average linear returns assumptions over decades.
Dave publicly
Well, it's officially happened. My partner's brother has become a life insurance agent and tried to sell us a Universal Life policy with a negative real rate of return (for all 91 potential policy years.)
My associate planner made a mistake and I didn't catch it. She apologized and told me I could blame her. I explained that leadership is taking responsibility for mistakes made on your watch and giving credit for accomplishments to others in your team when good things happen.
Today marks 8 years in practice. 152 families, $50 million in delegation, and $178 million in trust. It's a wild ride to get even this far, but it's a privilege and a pleasure. It's also my birthday, by utter coincidence. Suffice to say, it's all a blessing and then some.
Apparently, the news is out of the bag: I've been awarded the 2023 NAPFA New Professional Award! It feels a bit strange to receive it, given that I look and feel like I was born at the age of 55, but it's an honor nonetheless.
Dumb rules we should do away with:
-2 Year SIMPLE IRA lockup.
-Pro Rata rule for IRA conversions.
-Having 401k/403b/457s vs just one.
-IRAs having lower limits than employer plans.
-HSA HDHP requirements.
-Taxation of health benefits as part of compensation.
Client attempting to rollover <$5k from an inherited Voya 403(b).
@Voya
:
-You have to return our wet signed form.
-Not that one.
-That one but you're missing our other form we didn't give you.
-We need an LOA from the receiving custodian.
-Wetsigned original.
-LOL we lost it.
The next time someone calls a permanent life policy a "rich man's roth," show them this tweet where I show you my heartburn at a prospect's Universal Life policy that they've paid $195,700 in premiums for over the past 20 years and now has a cash value of $39,881. (DB:$1.2mm)
My favorite part of this is a guy with a background in countertop sales attempting to "the true secrets of wealth" gaslight a bunch of veteran CFP Professionals, CFAs, and PhDs in finance and financial planning about things basic enough to be on the life insurance license exam.
I gave the "tough" lecture in the Retirement Planning class I teach at UC Boulder this week: "The Racial Wealth Gap, Gender Pay Gap, and Special Needs Planning," in which we cover systemic limitations and disadvantages experienced by certain populations in the United States.
I am extremely excited to announce the release of GETTING IN THE DOOR: Starting a Financial Planning Career. The book is for students and career changers looking for guidance on how to find a quality starting position in the financial planning field.
Young woman: Hey do you remember me? I was a student in a class you guest taught years ago. I'm a financial advisor now!
Me: Oh, awesome, where?
Young woman: Northwestern Mutual.
Me:
Read an email from a Primerica broker this morning, telling the client that only A & C shares were available to the public and all other shares were for institutional investors and had $1m minimums.
When brokers can openly lie, in writing, how asleep at the wheel is compliance?
Honestly we could do with a "no exit scalping" law for all financial firms. $125 ACAT-Out fees, $50 401(k) closure fees, $40 to send by 2 day mail that's $6.95 from the USPS. On and on the grift goes. Throw in mandatory ACAT eligibility, including ERISA plans, while we're at it.
A client has an investment account at Acorns.
Please tell me I'm wrong that the transfer (out) fee is $35...PER ETF?!
#fintech
...yet another way it's "democratizing" investing...
Why pay a lawyer, CPA, or CFP when you can ask your neighbor Greg the Otolaryngologist what investments will get the best net of tax return in an irrevocable trust set up in another state for the benefit of your foreign national business partner's spouse in a buy sell agreement?
I'm forever disappointed when I see entry level positions (paraplanner, part time FP, etc.) Require 2+ years of "experience". There are plenty of brand new PFP grads out there that know more about financial planning than recent wirehouse washouts who know nothing but sales.
I'm somewhat infamous for telling people to post compensation with their job descriptions. In the spirit of fairness, it seems only right that we are transparent regarding our compensation & benefits structure. So for those who are curious, here it is!
I feel like people need to be reminded that financial planning takes not just knowledge and a cool discovery meeting script, but that it takes a genuinely significant amount of time and effort not just to do, but to do well.
Just had the strangest meeting request. Succinctly "We're paying more and more in taxes every year, we work with a tax professional, but we need more advice. We don't want to change anything about our finances."
What exactly are you expecting anyone to do?
We can argue about fee models.
We can argue commissions vs. fees.
But everyone can universally agree: Ticketmaster "convenience fees" are the real villain.
Just learned today that one of my students worked at an insurance company when they were 18 and they were sold a half million dollar whole life policy as part of the internship. No spouse, no kids, no dependent parents. What the actual fuck?
How to build a DFA portfolio:
1️⃣ Examine the family of options closely.
2️⃣ Drink as much Kool-aid as you can.
3️⃣ Repeat their branded talking points until you die.
3 years to the day.
Narrator: He did not, in fact, run a financial planning practice.
<1 year into the business and hustling, I'm sure he was genuinely excited to share some "financial planning ideas" that would lead him to a whole life sales commission. Just one problem.
I love RIA listing emails.
"Firm for sale in Truth or Consequences, NM. Serves 237 clients around US, all clients are 98+ years old and demand conspiracy-oriented ESG assets. Portfolios are currently individual Taiwanese bond warrants. Revenue $112k/year, asking $3.9 Million."
My wife kindly treated me to trying out a Michelin star restaurant for the first time this weekend as a birthday present. I thought I'd share the experience as a non-foodie for anyone curious about what a first time Michelin experience is like.
I was invited to breakfast this morning, under the caveat that I bring $100 cash as a tip. A group of ten people attended and at the end of breakfast we tipped our server a cumulative $1,000. It was a fun way to celebrate the holidays, I'd recommend giving it a try.
If you are unwilling to hire graduates and career changers into genuine entry level positions (0-1 year experience), you don't need to pretend you care about growing the profession or representation within it. We see you, and you're telling us everything about yourself.
Client: I want to self-manage my own investments, just tell me what I need to invest in.
Us: Great. Here are the funds we'd recommend and the asset allocation for each account.
Client: I don't understand any of this.
Just got off a zoom with a new client a few minutes ago after presenting their initial plan. They must not have hit "leave meeting" when they thought they did, because as soon as the pause passed, we heard her say: "That was amazing. They looked at so much more than I ever did."
A barrier to the creation of more financial planning programs is the way we pay new entrants. When 99% of entry level positions in a profession are 1099 sales jobs with no base, colleges are disincentivized to establish and grow programs because the reported starting salary = $0.
@JuniperLSimonis
I guess I'm not following. It looks like you're graftiing public property, you're lawfully detained, and you violently resist arrest. I could be misunderstanding context and the video could be missing something that was physically harmful to you, but this looks pretty open shut.
Many people will be okay without a financial planner. They're saving 10%-20% of their income, avoiding high debt, spending responsibly, and so on.
Many people can swim without drowning. Yet, no one would confuse staying afloat with being good or even competitive at swimming.
I generally try to think well of other financial professionals, but this morning I was reminded of my first and only CFP Professional, who placed me (an army veteran with a few thousand dollars to invest) in an active C Share fund that cost 2.15% without any due diligence.
Unpopular opinion: If you take a job seeker to the level of an interview, code test, or other test, and you decline them, you should be required to provide feedback. They likely wasted hours if not days on their resume, cover letter, code test, etc. You can give them 10 minutes.
It is a never ending point of amusement to me to watch people who market their services not by the quality of their services, not by the lack of quality of other's services, but by attacking how those people are paid. The assumption is always that those people are overcharging.
Three contradictory stats:
1) There's an anticipated 70k shortfall of financial planners over the next decade
2) There are more students than entry-level financial planning jobs
3) Firms are having a hard time sourcing qualified financial planners
What are we gonna do about it?
Just got an email from another PFP program that will be using GETTING IN THE DOOR: Starting a Financial Planning Career in their cirriculum. That makes ten universities adopting it as the standard in helping their students get a strong start to their financial planning career!
The more I talk to life insurance fanatics, the more I'm convinced their misrepresentations might be due to lack of reading comprehension and literacy than malicious intent. You can say "I'm talking about an apple" and they will froth at the mouth to scream about oranges.
PSA: If you are not offering people on your team the day off to cope with the loss of fundamental human rights in the US, you are not paying attention to the needs of the human beings who work with you.
My assistant started 15 days ago. In that time I've given her her birthday off and sent her home 30 minutes to two hours early on about 3 occasions. "What an incredible job." She keeps saying. But really, I just see no reason to keep someone in an office if the work is done.
Contrast this:
*ring*
"Thanks for calling
@Fidelity
, you want a rollover, Joe?"
"Hi I'm not Joe, but Joe is on the other line. Can I bring him on?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever."
"Hi this is Joe I want-"
"A rollover, got it. Overnight or regular mail?"
"Regular."
"Already sent."
Client attempting to rollover <$5k from an inherited Voya 403(b).
@Voya
:
-You have to return our wet signed form.
-Not that one.
-That one but you're missing our other form we didn't give you.
-We need an LOA from the receiving custodian.
-Wetsigned original.
-LOL we lost it.
I teach retirement & investment planning. Students who pass have only a fraction of knowledge considering how deep & wide those areas are. Even people in industry for years struggle to grasp it fully. I think about this every time someone casually suggests DIY folks will be fine.
I follow and agree with all the arguments for niche firms. They make a lot of sense and the simplify a lot of things. That said, running a non-niche firm, we've grown 42.55% YTD. You don't have to be niche to be a good fit for the right people.
It's that exciting time of the every-few-years where the best
@MichaelKitces
report comes out: How Financial Planners Actually Do Financial Planning! Last time I had a Twitter thread (), and tonight is no exception. Without further ado, let's crack into it!
New Kitces Report is available!!! Upon an initial reading (and there will be many more to follow), these are some immediate call-outs, which I will follow with initial thoughts.
Callouts:
1⃣Average cost of a financial plan increased by 11.11% in 2 years
Us: We're requesting a partial transfer of this account.
Fidelity: That would bring the client's account below our minimum required balance.
Us: Fine, what is the minimum required balance?
Fidelity: We can't tell you that.
Yesterday we turned down a potential client.
"There is no reason for you to pay us $250/month for us to tell you to pay down your credit cards before anything else. Start with [avalanche paydown] and lets meet in the spring to assess whether it's a better time to work together."
@MPIUnlimited
Tell me you don't understand:
-Investments vs. Accounts
-The 4% Rule
-Retirement Income Planning
-Anything other than your own sales script
Without telling me you don't understand any of it.
The planner I most admire manages less than $25 Million. The most generous planners I know are fee-based non-CFPs. The most selfless planner I know spends more time mentoring than working in their practice. AUM, business model, and hours worked are not a measure of your impact.
If you say: "The compensation is competitive" 3 times in the mirror, I will appear and scream, "If the compensation is competitive it should be in the job description," in your ear.
I talked to a couple dozen PFP students today. One thing stuck out to me: firms are hiring interns and then giving them nothing to do. This wastes the intern's time & potential, not to mention stagnating their development. Do better, pay more attention. These students deserve it.
@AdviserCounsel
@olsonplanner
The audacity of any professional being offended that someone might charge for their services is the greatest eyeroll imaginable, particularly in the context of someone like
@olsonplanner
who gives every impression that his full time job is giving it away for as-free-as-he-can.
I think I just encountered the most disgusting rollover form:
-Paper
-Spousal signature with notary (not community property)
-Administrator from old plan signature
-Administrator from new plan signature
-Included a trap signature in the packet to cancel the rollover request
How to build an American Funds Portfolio:
1️⃣ Examine the family of fund options carefully.
2️⃣ Decide whether your firm wants a 0.25% revenue share or will charge a 0.25% platform fee.
3️⃣ Rationalize under-performing active management to your clients until you die.
Have you ever wanted the complexity and liability of an ERISA plan with none of the benefits? Try SIMPLE 401(K)! The 401(k) that's anything BUT simple!
I'm teaching a 20 person retirement planning class this semester. This is my classroom. I think they might have thought there was an extra zero in the enrollment.
Summary of the Financial Planning Fee Shit-Talker's Fallacy:
-My process is niche for my clients
-My fees are therefore justified for my clients
-Your process is different and would be inferior for my clients
-Your fees therefore are unjustified
For anyone on the fence re: scheduling software,
@Calendly
has saved my two-person practice $1,054 in staff time at a cost of $288 in the past year. Just food for thought.
Color me surprised that everyone's favorite mediocre narcissist's response to
@MegBartelt
's thoughtful writeup on her experience with surge was "Oh, you didn't do it right, but when you're ready, pay me to show you how."
Thank you for sharing your experience,
@MegBartelt
.
6 hours of consults and follow-up later, I have officially listened to a prospect too much. Got to the signing table, ghosted, then came back with "I thought all this* was free, then I decide if you'll manage money for me."
*Comprehensive planning estimated around 40-50 hours.
"Your service is too expensive." -Prospect Email
Good. No seriously, good. Being the only fee-only practice, with more alphabet soup than every financial salesperson in my community combined, commands a premium. I'm not going to squirm, balk, or apologize for being top tier.