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Personal Finance Advice and Education! (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter No. 16
- Start date
-OZ-
Footballguy
Thanks. Would you have ignored the first call, in hindsight?They did a decent analysis and a 20-some page set of analysis/recommendations. Their big pitch is:
1) equal distribution of assets across industry sectors instead of using overall market funds. Their studies show it is historically less volatile and would have produced better results
2) they actively manage tax impacts.
I wanted to see their pitch and approach. I had a guy named Hannes Gehring - he was ok at first but was increasingly aggressive. I told him I wasn't interested and thanks for his time. He insinuated I was making a poor decision and "wouldn't I agree that the 'facts' he had shown me would produce better results for me and my family."
LOL - the worst kind of hard-sell schlock BS.
The calls continued to come every quarter from the plebs trying to appointment set for the closer guys (good ol' Hannes was still my consultant). I turned them down and asked them to take me off their list. The calls continued until I said ..."sure, set up a call with Hannes if that will stop you guys from calling."
Call comes a week or so later on time. It's the pleb who set up the call - just like the old days, when the secretary would "get someone on the phone" to make sure Hannes didn't waste his precious time dialing. I wait for Hannes to come on the line. He arrives on the line in a couple of minutes ...keeping me waiting. "Well Mr. Binky what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"
wtf? I said, "you guys are the ones that set up the call - I don't ever want to talk to you again." He proceeds to get ####ty, and I get ####tier.
They don't call me anymore.
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
If I could get the analysis/recommendations report ...yes, I would have ignored the call. The discussion added no value.
Gawain
Footballguy
“Hans, bubbey, I’m your white knight. Hey babe, I negotiate million dollar deals for breakfast. I think I can handle this Eurotrash”
-OZ-
Footballguy
If their biggest selling point is tax loss harvesting, I might let them manage the portion of our portfolio outside the Roth and TSP, which would cost around $300-500. But those funds are already earmarked for a car and cabin and are likely to disappear in the next 12-24 months.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
My mother in law is getting advice from Fidelity as that's where she had her 401k when she retired. They give her advice over the phone yearly for allocations and to set the distribution amounts for the year.
She told me that they approached her about setting up an annuity, but maybe not for her full retirement account. Everything I've heard about annuities is to stay away, but I'd like some other opinions.
She told me that they approached her about setting up an annuity, but maybe not for her full retirement account. Everything I've heard about annuities is to stay away, but I'd like some other opinions.
wilked
Footballguy
Annuities (SPIA) aren't bad. It depends a little on what your MIL wants.
Lots of people out there want to remove the uncertainty of the market and turn it into certain fixed payments. There is a really good argument to use SS + SPIA to establish a strong income base that will account for 80-100% of planned expenses.
What is nice about SPIAs is that they are easy to understand, so they can be shopped and thus have smaller margins than other financial product
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Interesting. I take it these products aren't dependent ton Fed rates or inflation?
Got any links on how they work?
culdeus
Footballguy
-OZ-
Footballguy
wilked
Footballguy
It's basically like buying a pension
Most are not inflation-adjusted, and the ones that do are very expensive, so you need to make your own inflation assumptions
As an example, a 65 yr old woman might get $1300/month in exchange for $250K.
wilked
Footballguy
-OZ-
Footballguy
Has anyone here used roofstock.com?
Seems like a simple way to get into rental properties but I assume it's expensive. It seems like they take care of everything, but that indicates to me that you'll be paying a premium for the service.
They have a couple houses near me in decent neighborhoods and a bunch where I grew up, but in less than stellar neighborhoods.
Seems like a simple way to get into rental properties but I assume it's expensive. It seems like they take care of everything, but that indicates to me that you'll be paying a premium for the service.
They have a couple houses near me in decent neighborhoods and a bunch where I grew up, but in less than stellar neighborhoods.
I just looked them up. Very interesting. Here's a thread from bigger pockets:
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/533057-roofstock-review-case-study
-OZ-
Footballguy
-OZ-
Footballguy
Dan Flanagan called me. In all honesty, he did a great job of presenting his analysis and the pitch. Listened to my questions, answered intelligently. Overall he did a very good job. If I were really looking for a financial adviser, I'd probably go with them. No hard sell at the presentation, maybe that will come later but his approach was highly professional. He seems really good at his job.They did a decent analysis and a 20-some page set of analysis/recommendations. Their big pitch is:
1) equal distribution of assets across industry sectors instead of using overall market funds. Their studies show it is historically less volatile and would have produced better results
2) they actively manage tax impacts.
I wanted to see their pitch and approach. I had a guy named Hannes Gehring - he was ok at first but was increasingly aggressive. I told him I wasn't interested and thanks for his time. He insinuated I was making a poor decision and "wouldn't I agree that the 'facts' he had shown me would produce better results for me and my family."
LOL - the worst kind of hard-sell schlock BS.
The calls continued to come every quarter from the plebs trying to appointment set for the closer guys (good ol' Hannes was still my consultant). I turned them down and asked them to take me off their list. The calls continued until I said ..."sure, set up a call with Hannes if that will stop you guys from calling."
Call comes a week or so later on time. It's the pleb who set up the call - just like the old days, when the secretary would "get someone on the phone" to make sure Hannes didn't waste his precious time dialing. I wait for Hannes to come on the line. He arrives on the line in a couple of minutes ...keeping me waiting. "Well Mr. Binky what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"
wtf? I said, "you guys are the ones that set up the call - I don't ever want to talk to you again." He proceeds to get ####ty, and I get ####tier.
They don't call me anymore.
That said, you're right on both, but he even said they can't do much for my taxes, I'm almost exclusively in Roth funds and the TSP. They can't manage the TSP but they want me to either transfer my military TSP to their accounts or charge me to include the TSP in their service. I kind of get it, but I don't plan to sell it, and if they included it, keeping it doesn't help at all.
Their biggest pitch, that their plan beats the S&P 500 by 1 percent annually over the past 20 years, doesn't really do much for me. While I acknowledge there are some costs even in Vanguard ETFs, they're about half a percent lower, TSP is even lower. So they want me to pay 0.89% to make 1% more without a guarantee. I guess that works out, if I did nothing other than keep everything in the S&P 500, which I don't.
He did point out that my 17% bonds holding is too conservative for my stated risk tolerance and I should highly consider other alternative investments like metals and other commodities. I'll have to dig deeper there.
Overall I'm certainly not sold on needing their service, but if I were I'd probably go with them. Or at least consider it strongly.
Sand
Footballguy
It is, and when he tried to get me to move my taxable stuff over to his system I reminded him of the avalanche of capital gains I'd have to pay to allow him to manage them. He tried to tell me it was worth it and I called him out on that (gently). Even he couldn't argue with the numbers and they stopped calling after that.
If their biggest selling point is tax loss harvesting, I might let them manage the portion of our portfolio outside the Roth and TSP, which would cost around $300-500. But those funds are already earmarked for a car and cabin and are likely to disappear in the next 12-24 months.
Sand
Footballguy
This is horrible advice, IMO. And 17% bonds at your age is toward the aggressive side.
The .9% fee is too darn high. Cut it by 2/3 and it's reasonable.
-OZ-
Footballguy
Agreed on the 17% being on the aggressive side, especially when roughly half of that is in the kids college accounts. (My retirement is very close to his 10% goal). The commodities are just a hedge, really not sure about it. I like my hedges being my guaranteed pension and some REITs.
I haven't shopped for an adviser. LMM had a show a while ago about Edward Jones and their 1% fee, which I think is on top of the inherent fees in the ETF or mutual funds and EJ aren't fiduciaries. The fiduciary part is big IMO.
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Sand
Footballguy
Completely IMO, but financial advisers are for the most part superfluous for anyone that has even a bit of time. Their hit over time is humongous. Setup a three fund portfolio and forget about it and you'll be as well off as with these guys. I'd put more money into lawyers for a good will and a CPA if taxes are complicated.
Talking about fiduciary my wife was concerned about her handling things if I were to drop dead. I wrote out specific instructions and "fiduciary" is in there at least a half dozen times.
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
I didn't get the hard sell until I wasn't saying yes. My guy, Hannes, was laid-back and professional until he wasn't closing.
I would think they are all different, though I would also expect that they are measured on total sales and close rate percentages.
-OZ-
Footballguy
-OZ-
Footballguy
I told him plainly that next week is super busy but I'd correspond over email.
If he can't respect that, it's even easier.
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
I would like some of you guys' opinions, thoughts and advice on my situation. I'm reluctant to write all this out and share so much personal information but by reading others' questions, I know how hard it is to give good advice unless you know a lot of details. So here goes…
I hadn’t added all my investments up in a while mainly due to the fact that I was having password issues for my work retirement plan. I got that resolved last week and added everything up today. They totaled $956K. If I’m allowed to add the value to my townhouse (paid-in-full), that makes me a millionaire.
I have to say, I’m know not being married and not having kids makes this retirement savings thing considerably easier. For the record, I’m 47 years old.
My portfolio is 90.2% in equities and 9.8% cash. I’m counting I Bonds as cash. And my cash position is my emergency fund and short term savings. I have no bonds. The majority of my equity investments are in index funds and I’m fully committed to passive investing. On that topic, I’m not looking for advice.
As soon as economically feasible, I’d like to quit my job. Working isn’t terrible by any means but I think I’d prefer not to work full-time than to work full-time. Perhaps I’d like a part-time job to stay busy but obviously my earning would go way down. Not that I make a huge amount of money now. Under six figures.
My first question is at what financial target should I feel comfortable quitting my job? I’m frugal by nature and don’t have much interest in living an extravagant lifestyle. Off the top of my head, I’d estimate I spend less than $40K a year. If, for example, I had a portfolio of $2 million I think I could easily live off of the interest and investment income. A 5% annual return would be $100,000 a year which would far surpass my spending needs and inflation. But would $1.5 million be enough? A couple of excellent stock market years could get me there. Quitting would be such a big decision, how do I decide when to pull that trigger? What I’d like to do is save enough to live off the investment income and then arrange for charity to get my principal upon my death.
My second question is when should I consider changing my asset allocation? Now? I know the rules of thumb say I shouldn’t be at 90% equity at 47. But I feel like the risk of the high equity position might be worth it. Unless we have the longest bear market in history, I’m not risking insolvency in old age. Worst case scenario is I work longer.
Thanks in advance for reading all of this.
I hadn’t added all my investments up in a while mainly due to the fact that I was having password issues for my work retirement plan. I got that resolved last week and added everything up today. They totaled $956K. If I’m allowed to add the value to my townhouse (paid-in-full), that makes me a millionaire.
I have to say, I’m know not being married and not having kids makes this retirement savings thing considerably easier. For the record, I’m 47 years old.
My portfolio is 90.2% in equities and 9.8% cash. I’m counting I Bonds as cash. And my cash position is my emergency fund and short term savings. I have no bonds. The majority of my equity investments are in index funds and I’m fully committed to passive investing. On that topic, I’m not looking for advice.
As soon as economically feasible, I’d like to quit my job. Working isn’t terrible by any means but I think I’d prefer not to work full-time than to work full-time. Perhaps I’d like a part-time job to stay busy but obviously my earning would go way down. Not that I make a huge amount of money now. Under six figures.
My first question is at what financial target should I feel comfortable quitting my job? I’m frugal by nature and don’t have much interest in living an extravagant lifestyle. Off the top of my head, I’d estimate I spend less than $40K a year. If, for example, I had a portfolio of $2 million I think I could easily live off of the interest and investment income. A 5% annual return would be $100,000 a year which would far surpass my spending needs and inflation. But would $1.5 million be enough? A couple of excellent stock market years could get me there. Quitting would be such a big decision, how do I decide when to pull that trigger? What I’d like to do is save enough to live off the investment income and then arrange for charity to get my principal upon my death.
My second question is when should I consider changing my asset allocation? Now? I know the rules of thumb say I shouldn’t be at 90% equity at 47. But I feel like the risk of the high equity position might be worth it. Unless we have the longest bear market in history, I’m not risking insolvency in old age. Worst case scenario is I work longer.
Thanks in advance for reading all of this.
One of your first tasks needs to be making this an actual number instead of an estimate. Then you need to do more detailed planning about what retirement would look like. Are you staying in the same house you're in now? Planning to travel? Have other goals? Are you in a generally low or high cost of living area?
Another question is your split between tax advantaged accounts (IRA/401k) and pure after tax investment accounts. Not that you cannot touch the former before 59, but it requeires more planning.
I feel like you probably have way too much towards equity if you are close to retiring. Market volatility is a double edged sword here. It could put you at a good retirement number, or it could wipe out so large of a percent that you cannot retire early.
ghostguy123
Footballguy
@Jux
How much do you spend right now for health care? How much will you spend as soon as you quit your job? How much with that cost increase as you get older?
Biggest expense of retirement.
It's a ways away, but I am going make an attempt to "semi-retire" at 50 with a plan to work part time (probably right around 20 hours a week) basically just to have affordable health care through my work (even though the rates go up when you are part time as opposed to full time), especially when I will have an entire family on my plan until I am about 55 or so.
How much do you spend right now for health care? How much will you spend as soon as you quit your job? How much with that cost increase as you get older?
Biggest expense of retirement.
It's a ways away, but I am going make an attempt to "semi-retire" at 50 with a plan to work part time (probably right around 20 hours a week) basically just to have affordable health care through my work (even though the rates go up when you are part time as opposed to full time), especially when I will have an entire family on my plan until I am about 55 or so.
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
Good points. Estimating expenses seems very difficult. Obviously it's somewhat easy to figure out how much I pay today for utilities, taxes, food, clothing, etc. But future heath care? Emergencies? I don't think computing an actual number for expenses today is very meaningful. I'm sure that the < $40,000 estimate is accurate today but how meaningful that is to predict future expenses is highly questionable. Erring on the side of caution is appropriate though. I'm glad you brought this up.
I live in suburban Chicago which I'd guess has an average cost of living. I don't plan on moving and certainly wouldn't if I retired early and economic conditions worsened. I'd guess I'd like to be able to afford the occasional vacation.
70% of assets (excluding value of home) are retirement assets. You are correct that this could cause some tax issues in an early retirement but I think it could be manageable.
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
I am 97% covered for health care premiums by my employer now so it is not a considerable expense for me currently. It would be a huge concern for me if I retired early. I'm healthy now and expect to be in the near future. I'd probably buy insurance with a high deducible. You're right to assume this would be a considerable increased expense.
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
I have pretty decent coverage from my company, but when I retired my premiums more than doubled. Between the premiums, deductible, and prescriptions - there is nothing that remotely approaches my medical cost (not even counting dental and eye care).
CR69
Footballguy
Look into Christian Healthcare sharing ministries if you want a cheaper option for health insurance. I have coverage through my employer and we still went this route because of how much cheaper it is. You technically have to be a Christian but it's not like they follow you to church lol.
As far as when you can retire, the 4% rule (being able to safely withdraw 4% of your balance is considered a safe withdrawal rate) is pretty common in the FI area. It is also adjusted for inflation. Since I am planning on retiring early and want to be 100% certain that I don't have to go back to work (mortgage is a hard industry to get back into after an extended period of time off), I am using 3.3% for my calculations. Our house will be paid off by then and I have our annual expenses, including travel, down to $42,000 a year. Even less if we do extended travel in a cheap area like SE Asia. This means we only need $1.3m to retire.
https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
As far as when you can retire, the 4% rule (being able to safely withdraw 4% of your balance is considered a safe withdrawal rate) is pretty common in the FI area. It is also adjusted for inflation. Since I am planning on retiring early and want to be 100% certain that I don't have to go back to work (mortgage is a hard industry to get back into after an extended period of time off), I am using 3.3% for my calculations. Our house will be paid off by then and I have our annual expenses, including travel, down to $42,000 a year. Even less if we do extended travel in a cheap area like SE Asia. This means we only need $1.3m to retire.
https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
To further expand on my questions above, one thing that I don't think is discussed enough is how should your asset allocation decisions change if you plan to 1) live indefinitely on investment income or 2) care more about maximizing your portfolio for your beneficiaries than running out of money in your lifetime? It seems obvious to me that the first two situations make a riskier portfolio make more sense. Almost everything you read focuses on making your savings last your lifetime. The difference, however, may only be a couple of bull market years.
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
Yes. Allocation matters. From a risk perspective, the answer to this is no. Do the monte carlo sims on firecalc.
Sand
Footballguy
(I couldn't find the black dot, so a club instead.) I have a huge amount that I could say here, but don't have time at the moment. I'll try to write something tonight.I will say a few things. 1. SafeMax withdrawal percentage at your age is about 3.75%. 2. If you had a 20k/yr side gig going you could retire now. 3. You're in prime position to work the system to your advantage with that kind of expense level - Roth conversions, ACA subsidies, etc. 4. You're still way too effin' fast. It's sickening.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/
There's a ton of information at the site linked above. For early retirement, it's all about managing expenses. Your portfolio could be $20 million but if you spend $1 million/year it's not enough.
What's the allocation between retirement and non-retirement accounts? If you're retiring early, you're going to need to have sufficient $$ in non-retirement accounts until you reach 59 1/2 years of age. You can do a 72(t) withdrawal but there are restrictions and limitations if you go down that road.
Sand
Footballguy
Lots of things to cover here:
1. Do you have enough? Well, you're close. I noted a conservative safe withdrawal rate for your length retirement is 3.75% or thereabouts. If you look here it shows just over 4% for the worst case over 30 years (1965, which still is worst case). Another good article. 40 years is only marginally harder than 30, and Pfau calculated SafeMax at 40 years to be 3.72%. There are dynamic rules that can help you milk this number.
This assumes you'll never work again, ever. Fact is you'll probably end up getting some income from somewhere. Just a bit of recurring income makes a huge difference in the calculation. Even 1k/month would dramatically change the numbers. But, given what you've input, I'd say close. Maybe 1.2M to account for health care unknowns.
There are two other items to cover before blessing any big moves. What are you real expenses? People think they know what they spend, but usually don't - it's a very good idea to objectively track your expenses to see what they really are. Fixed and variable costs. I'd highly recommend using Mint or Personal Capital to track your expenses. PC does a good job of this, even if you don't enter the investment part. Mint is made to track expenses. 6 months will help you see what you spend and extrapolate to retirement.
The other big one is healthcare. I personally shy away a bit from Medishare as they cap sharing to 1M, if what I've read is accurate. One can eclipse that pretty quick. With the ACA you can top out at $45,900 to get subsidies and not fall off the cliff. And you can engineer your income (if you have taxable holdings) to stay under that number. Still, this is the biggest variable and the hardest one to predict.
2. Living money. Not sure of your split in taxable/tax deferred, but this matters. Where to get money if it's all locked up? For IRAs the magic number is 59.5, for 401(k) it can be 55. Now this in the long run it's actually better to be in tax deferred and take the 10% penalty, so you're doing fine even if almost all of what you have is sheltered. It does mean, though, you may need ~10% more than what you thought to be safe. There are ways to work this system, most notably Roth conversions at low/no income tax. Still a five year waiting period there to access the monies, though.
3. Ah, what allocation should you have? Well, 90/10 has been awesome the last decade. So, yeah, you nailed that. Oh, you mean from now on? The crystal ball is cloudy.
This is a touchy question - I have no clue when the ride ends and heads downhill. If siffoin shows up in the Stock thread with his hair on fire I'd probably downshift... If LHUCKS shows up and proclaims Dow 50,000 in the next five years I'd definitely downshift... Seriously, though, this is a great question and one which has been looked at a lot lately. The best article out there, by far, is from Kitces on constructing a bond umbrella around your retirement date. The sequence of returns right after retirement makes the biggest difference in your success rate than anything else. A bond umbrella blunts that and goes back to aggressive after a number of years. Kitces is a brilliant dude and I read his stuff closely. Also, to answer about leaving your heirs a lot, the solution is to be aggressive towards the end of your life, when you spend little and can take the risks. It also helps to know when you're going to die to time these things.On what allocation to use (rather than just 90/10) you may want to consider adding some diversification if you haven't already. Portfoliocharts has some spectacular output showing historical performance of constructed allocations. For tax sheltered accounts I really like the CoffeeHouse portfolio. Pretty simple, resilient, and is pretty good on the sequence of returns front. (For taxable accounts I'd prefer the Merriman Ultimate as it has more opportunity to tax loss harvest). Once you decide to pull the trigger I'd lean heavily toward at least diversifying a bit, even if you decide to stay aggressive.
To sum up on #3 - wasn't kidding about siffoin. If he sees things falling apart I wouldn't hesitate to get conservative (60/40, not something crazy like 20/80). You've done very, very well with being highly aggressive, nothing wrong with keeping that money around. I'm also tracking this stuff heavily (right now seems to still be 'risk on' mode).
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-OZ-
Footballguy
Interesting forum. Mostly good stuff until they start arguing over what "over 8 figures" means.
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
Retirement is a marathon not a 5K right? (Or, at least in my case, I hope so!)Just make sure you don't @Sand your Retirement.
Great post. Love this thread.....always something new to benefit fromLots of things to cover here:
1. Do you have enough? Well, you're close. I noted a conservative safe withdrawal rate for your length retirement is 3.75% or thereabouts. If you look here it shows just over 4% for the worst case over 30 years (1965, which still is worst case). Another good article. 40 years is only marginally harder than 30, and Pfau calculated SafeMax at 40 years to be 3.72%. There are dynamic rules that can help you milk this number.
This assumes you'll never work again, ever. Fact is you'll probably end up getting some income from somewhere. Just a bit of recurring income makes a huge difference in the calculation. Even 1k/month would dramatically change the numbers. But, given what you've input, I'd say close. Maybe 1.2M to account for health care unknowns.
There are two other items to cover before blessing any big moves. What are you real expenses? People think they know what they spend, but usually don't - it's a very good idea to objectively track your expenses to see what they really are. Fixed and variable costs. I'd highly recommend using Mint or Personal Capital to track your expenses. PC does a good job of this, even if you don't enter the investment part. Mint is made to track expenses. 6 months will help you see what you spend and extrapolate to retirement.
The other big one is healthcare. I personally shy away a bit from Medishare as they cap sharing to 1M, if what I've read is accurate. One can eclipse that pretty quick. With the ACA you can top out at $45,900 to get subsidies and not fall off the cliff. And you can engineer your income (if you have taxable holdings) to stay under that number. Still, this is the biggest variable and the hardest one to predict.
2. Living money. Not sure of your split in taxable/tax deferred, but this matters. Where to get money if it's all locked up? For IRAs the magic number is 59.5, for 401(k) it can be 55. Now this in the long run it's actually better to be in tax deferred and take the 10% penalty, so you're doing fine even if almost all of what you have is sheltered. It does mean, though, you may need ~10% more than what you thought to be safe. There are ways to work this system, most notably Roth conversions at low/no income tax. Still a five year waiting period there to access the monies, though.
3. Ah, what allocation should you have? Well, 90/10 has been awesome the last decade. So, yeah, you nailed that. Oh, you mean from now on? The crystal ball is cloudy.
On what allocation to use (rather than just 90/10) you may want to consider adding some diversification if you haven't already. Portfoliocharts has some spectacular output showing historical performance of constructed allocations. For tax sheltered accounts I really like the CoffeeHouse portfolio. Pretty simple, resilient, and is pretty good on the sequence of returns front. (For taxable accounts I'd prefer the Merriman Ultimate as it has more opportunity to tax loss harvest). Once you decide to pull the trigger I'd lean heavily toward at least diversifying a bit, even if you decide to stay aggressive.
To sum up on #3 - wasn't kidding about siffoin. If he sees things falling apart I wouldn't hesitate to get conservative (60/40, not something crazy like 20/80). You've done very, very well with being highly aggressive, nothing wrong with keeping that money around. I'm also tracking this stuff heavily (right now seems to still be 'risk on' mode).
Sand
Footballguy
-OZ-
Footballguy
Life is a triathlon.
Swim = childhood
Ride = adult working life
Run = retirement
Most likely, your performance on the bike will set you up for success or failure in the run. While the swim can help or hurt the rest but you can overcome a crappy swim.
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
And during the run is where the pain and fatigue really kicks in.Life is a triathlon.
Swim = childhood
Ride = adult working life
Run = retirement
Most likely, your performance on the bike will set you up for success or failure in the run. While the swim can help or hurt the rest but you can overcome a crappy swim.
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Chadstroma
Footballguy
So..... on a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend us to your friends and family? 10 being definitely yes and 1 being definitely no.They did a decent analysis and a 20-some page set of analysis/recommendations. Their big pitch is:
1) equal distribution of assets across industry sectors instead of using overall market funds. Their studies show it is historically less volatile and would have produced better results
2) they actively manage tax impacts.
I wanted to see their pitch and approach. I had a guy named Hannes Gehring - he was ok at first but was increasingly aggressive. I told him I wasn't interested and thanks for his time. He insinuated I was making a poor decision and "wouldn't I agree that the 'facts' he had shown me would produce better results for me and my family."
LOL - the worst kind of hard-sell schlock BS.
The calls continued to come every quarter from the plebs trying to appointment set for the closer guys (good ol' Hannes was still my consultant). I turned them down and asked them to take me off their list. The calls continued until I said ..."sure, set up a call with Hannes if that will stop you guys from calling."
Call comes a week or so later on time. It's the pleb who set up the call - just like the old days, when the secretary would "get someone on the phone" to make sure Hannes didn't waste his precious time dialing. I wait for Hannes to come on the line. He arrives on the line in a couple of minutes ...keeping me waiting. "Well Mr. Binky what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"
wtf? I said, "you guys are the ones that set up the call - I don't ever want to talk to you again." He proceeds to get ####ty, and I get ####tier.
They don't call me anymore.
