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

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.

Where did you get that from?

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?

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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.

Quote the OP. Show us where he asked that!


Who gives a shit, that's not what he asked!

Stick your list up your ass.
Answer his question!

Fuck your stupid list.

You are a goofy bitch/prick, aren't you?
$500 for the service is what he asked, anwser the question!!!

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.

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

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.

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.

I believe they have different strategy based on the demand of the customers. I haven’t joined their program but it will be better to check it with other programs.