Personal Finance

W. Wells · Guest

I am looking at buying the Vanguard Retirement Service for $500. Has anyone
tried it and if so was it worth the info?

Ed · Guest

I don't use it but I have spoken to people that have. I was told that it's
not much better or different than the free asset allocation info on their
website.

E · Guest

"Ell" <elle_navorski@earthlink.net> wrote

Ell · Guest

What sort of information are you hoping to get from it?

How to time stocks or mutual funds? Many experts have tried. Many fail.

Portfolio allocation among stocks, bonds, and cash? There are many tools on
the web for this. See a list I threw together at
http://home.earthlink.net/~elle_navorski/id4.html

Suggested retirement withdrawal rates from a portfolio for a given risk
tolerance? See the site above for a list of sites that help with this.

How to compute withdrawals from an IRA or other retirement plan?

--

Doug · Guest

Best thing to do is read Bogle's book "Bogle on Mutual Funds". Your
$500 would be better off in a Vanguard Mutual Fund. What you are
looking for is concrete answers. Since investing does not have concrete
answers, you wont find them, regardless of how much you pay. Vanguard
advisors doesn't have them either. No one does. Just go ahead and start
investing. Its not that hard. Vanguard has great funds. Some of the
best.

Gary C · Guest

W. Wells · Guest

The service that Vanguard offers is their recommend to diversifying your
portfolio to provide a good securities balance and secure income for the
assets that one has. We have the assets we just want advise on their
allocation.

Blind Broccoli · Guest

If you mean the Vanguard Personal Financial Planning Service, I tried it. As
a new Vanguard customer I will probably be getting it for free since I will
probably be investing enough in their funds. That is why I did it, to get
another opinion.

From what I hear there is a wide variance in the planner you get. My plan
was sensible and did not include a lot of their poor performing funds or a
lot of different funds period; others have had a very different experience.

Where the rubber meets the road is, now it's time to start implementing the
plan....and all of a sudden I am finding more and more parts of it I
disagree with! That is, when it's my money, I'm not so sure I agree with
their philosophy. In particular, I can't get over knowing that if I buy the
total stock market, I am buying a lot of stocks that I would never consider
if I had the time or inclination to peruse their financials. Also, the
general upward trend of the U.S. market used to be a pretty safe bet, and
that is the bet you are making when you invest in VTSMX as your core
holding; today I have my doubts.

The problem is also this. I am just not good enough to find undiscovered
values in the market. I would probably be a value investor if I could. So
all I can do is pick managers that I've heard are good at it. I'm too tired
to do my own due diligence, you understand? So if I pick managers with good
long track records and cheap no load funds, I should do well...except those
managers retire, die, start hedge funds or quit the business for other
interests. And now I have to pay more attention, when I want to be persuing
my *own* "other interests."

So almost as a matter of the lesser of evils I am forced into a way of
investing that I don't particularly believe in, with a lot of
diversification and index funds and the 50-50 or 60-40 asset allocation I
was going to use anyway. The plan I got from Vanguard is no better or worse
than what one might put together from the books by Swedroe, Ferri, William
Bernstein, and Bogle himself. Plus lots of others. Which are free in the
library.

But I feel a little bit like I am being forced to choose a style of
investing based on my own limitations that is very similar to how I bought
my last car...I got tired of shopping and I happened to be at a Buick dealer
at the time...so I got a Buick.

BB

W. Wells · Guest

Thanks for the info and I agree with you. My main interest is getting
recommendations on the bonds. I am at the end of my putting in new money and
am looking for an income and paying less taxes. Hopefully they can tell me
what bond funds to invest in at this time. My stock funds and individual
stocks are pretty well balanced now. I just don't have enough money coming
in each month now that I don't have a business anymore. My plan is to see
what type of funds they recommend and then find the best fund in that type.
Whether it is Vanguard or another fund. I mainly like Vanguard because of
their low expenses.

fa-convert · Joined: 30 Aug 2006 Posts: 2

I have used Vanguard's service. You fill out a questionare and provide them with a list of your assets. You tell them how much money you'll be receiving in various pensions, social security, etc ... and how much money you think you'll need in retirement (in today's dollars). They let you know if you are on track (with your current plan), and suggest two alternate plans. First of all they suggest that you use as few funds as possible to keep things simple and to be able to take advantage of their lower cost admiral shares (min of $100K per fund). Rebalancing is done across all registrations (your Roth, your wife's Roth, your Traditional, your Rollover, your wife's Rollover, your 401K, etc ...). They also load the Roth's up with the fund which has the potential of generating the most return. They underweigh International and have a growth tilt, even though my preferance is value & more international. More than anything it lets me know that I am on the right track with my current portfolio.

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