DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning
Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software
Members of certain financial and investment advisory groups have chosen to work with their clients solely on a client-paid “fee-only” basis. Members of certain fee-only advisory organizations have pledged to work with their clients through fee-only compensation arrangements. These organizations do not issue certifications. They are membership organizations. National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) […]
Even if you actually are getting good financial advice, paying your investment advisor via a sales load charge is just one of several potential compensation methods. A sales load might be the method that you prefer to compensate your broker or advisor. If your advisor is truly competent and ethical, he may be able to […]
There are three primary types of third party or commission-based compensation: commission-only, fee-based commission, and fee-offset commission. How an advisor is compensated can be a very important issue. With commission-only advisors, there is no direct cost to the client for planning and advice. The advice appears to be free, but it is not. Most clients […]
Yes, it can matter significantly how a financial advisor is paid. The heart of the compensation issue is an advisor’s potential “conflict of interest” with respect to payments from third parties. Does third party compensation change the quality of the recommendations that the advisers make? If an advisor works on sales commissions or accepts other […]
CLICK HERE TO READ THE SKILLED INVESTOR’s OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THESE “10 FINANCIAL PLANNING STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.” The single most significant financial lever that individuals control directly is their management of personal expenditures. The second is their lifetime effort to obtain sufficient income. Most people simply do not save enough of their current […]
Increase your knowledge and accelerate your ability to take leadership in the management of your own personal finances and lifetime investing. This ten-step personal financial planning process will help you optimize the management of your financial planning and investment management affairs over your lifetime, while greatly reducing the unnecessary waste of your money and your […]
Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]
Part 3 of the The Never-Do List – 22 Good Ways to Avoid Financial Advisor and Investment Counselor Frauds and Scams This article discusses things that you should “never do” with a financial planner or investment advisor, and it covers unsolicited advice, sales pressure, and account decision-making discretion. You should never do certain things with […]
Part 2 of the The Never-Do List – 22 Good Ways to Avoid Financial Advisor and Investment Counselor Frauds and Scams This article discusses things that you should “never do†with a financial planner or investment advisor, and it covers fees, payments, and proprietary investments. You should never do certain things with a financial planning […]
Part 1 of the The Never-Do List – 22 Good Ways to Avoid Financial Advisor and Investment Counselor Frauds and Scams This article discusses things that you should “never do†with a financial planner or investment advisor, and it covers adviser selection, contracts, signatures, and ownership title of your assets. You should never do certain […]
Avoiding financial advisor and investment counselor frauds and scams – Overview The best way to avoid being defrauded or scammed by a financial or investment advisor is to investigate carefully several different advisers before hiring one of them. If you carefully choose a financial adviser or investment counselor, you have a far greater chance of […]
Pre-retirement savings rates for renters – with and without investment cost improvements Improving on Fran and Fred’s lifetime financial plan through lower investment costs Fran and Fred Frugal, both age 30, are a married working couple with $100,000 in combined annual earned income. They want to understand how valuable different personal finance strategies could be […]
How to lie with statistics: Investment performance charts – A Tip from The Skilled Investor Darrell Huff wrote a short and very informative book, “How to Lie with Statistics,” which was first published in 1954 and was amusingly illustrated by Irving Geis. This book is still in print and remains very popular (Amazon book rank […]
The kind of financial advisor you need – A Tip from The Skilled Investor Good or bad, financial advisors are expensive. If you need a financial advisor’s help and you carefully select a good financial advisor, the value of the personal finance and investment advice that you receive might easily repay the advisor cost. However, […]
VeriPlan can estimate the lost lifetime value of investment sales loads that you have already paid in the past Your personal investment portfolio losses related to past investment sales load payments can and should be measured, when you evaluate the cost-efficiency of your investment strategy. However, you cannot recapture any of the lost returns (past […]
How expensive is financial advisor compensation paid via sales loads? A sales load might be the method that you prefer to compensate your broker or advisor. If your advisor is truly competent and ethical, he may be able to manage properly the inherent conflicts of interest that are associated with commissioned investment product sales. Even […]
Can you really get free and objective investment advice, when you pay investment sales loads? Excessive investment expenses are one of the most significant barriers to your family’s lifelong financial security. Excessive investment costs are a plague on your personal financial planning. While financial services industry sales people tell you that you need to pay […]
Financial research drives industry product development, but not necessarily toward the best interests of individuals Personal financial decisions seem to have become very complicated. To add to the confusion, the financial services industry develops an unending array of supposedly innovative new products. However, a large part of the complexity that individuals face results from the […]