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Originally Posted by Buehler445
Lew is right.
But my perspective is something is better than nothing. It's really easy to get bogged down in details and research. Sometimes paying someone to set it all up is cheap money if you wouldn't otherwise do it.
My grandpa was a farmer. Grew up in the depression. So he did everything himself. Built his house. All his sheds. Airplanes. Rebuilt his tractors. If he couldn't do it himself it largely didn't happen.
But he had 2 mutual funds. One he put $3,000 sometime in the 60s and $3,000 sometime in the 70s. Both had well over 150,000 in them when he died in 08 (right about the time the market puked all over everything). He didn't pay any attention to loads, fees, commission, whatever. He just made a little extra money and had his ground paid off and just stuck it somewhere. I'm sure it wasn't the most efficient and one vastly out yielded the other but the return over time on either one was huge.
Just do something.
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Paying someone to do it for you is not always a bad thing, especially for those who don't have the time or interest to do it themselves. Advisors don't guarantee returns, they manage risk, and I think that is a misunderstood role.
Most people think you are paying someone to go out and get you above average returns. That's what a hedge fund is.
Great example of this is a hypothetical where the market as a whole has a 10-15% dip, an advisor who has you in a good asset allocation minimizes your losses during this period to something like 5- 7%. Because you are in a moderately defensive allocation, during good years you may not return exactly what the market returns.
It's a safe bet for the less risky of us.
When you are nearing retirement and have more complex requirements, paying an advisor to minimize your risk is usually worthwhile.