let me start by saying i'm not very financially literate, sorry for the long post, and this is a throwaway account. i am now in my mid-40s. divorced, no kids, no alimony. i have a busy (non-finance related) career that often leaves me exhausted at the end of the work day; gross income is about $190k.
at the end of 2009, my father passed and left me about $1.3 million. found a great financial advisor through a college friend, with a great education & conservative outlook. he is my age, i trust him and we get along great. i spent about $100k on a home remodel, the rest went into a brokerage account (starting balance of $1.2MM... this is my cost basis, yes?)
so we had those boom years in '12 & '13... great. somewhere in there, my advisor left his company, moved around and is now in much greener pastures (he manages wealth for billionaires now). we continued our relationship off the books, meaning we touch base maybe 3-6 times a year, to discuss anything from a new car lease to my now defunct marriage. my brokerage account doesn't incur any fees, since it was opened under his original company's name and has been flying under the radar all these years. i don't pay him anything; i get him a nice gift once in a while.
in 2015, i cashed out $130k for a down payment on a rental property.
it's now 2018. my total account value broke the $2 million mark a couple weeks ago (including ~$100k in a SEP IRA), which i'm pretty happy about. we just rebalanced this week after selling off some funds before year end, and mostly bought into Vanguard funds in large, mid/ small cap and international. so here are my questions:
-
Is it reasonable to expect my account balance to have doubled in the 7 years since we started? Minus the IRA, the primary account value is ~$1.9MM, far short of $2.4MM. My advisor agrees we underperformed, then rattled off a short list of reasons.)
-
How much more should I be doing to educate myself? I feel like an idiot during our conversations. As smart as he is, he never really puts anything in layman's terms, so I tend to glaze over until he finishes. I bought a couple books that I never read. I've thought about classes occasionally; is there an online course anyone can recommend? Is it worth it to look at nearby universities? (I live in a major city.)
-
Am I putting myself in a bad position with my advisor? Since we don't have a formal relationship, I recently realized fiduciary duty doesn't really mean anything here... right? I trust my guy and on a personal level, he's a super smart, cool family guy. But I also don't want to fuck myself over.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. I don't really have anyone to talk to about this stuff.
Submitted January 04, 2018 at 05:18PM by m0_m0ney_ http://ift.tt/2CVrNuz
