I am brand new to investing, and have no idea where to start. I am researching, but am pretty far behind on investment knowledge. I just started a job at 65,000 a year. My employer is offering 3% in retirement contribution matching, and brought in her friend, a financial advisor, to help me understand the retirement investing process (as well as the rest of the office - 5 people).
He explained to us that he would open Simple IRA accounts for us that have mutual fund investments in them. He briefly explained this to us, and my understanding is that it is just a slightly better form of investing, where you can choose risky or safe investing.
However, he seemed a little shady to me, just a bad vibe. He briefly explained how much in fees we pay, but QUICKLY glossed over it. I forced him back on the subject, and he tried to explain in a complicated way. I think what he said was they take 5% of all contributions, so if I were to contribute 1000, I would actually have to pay 1050 in order to invest 1000. This seemed high to me, so I refused to set up the matching until I did more research. He said he uses Invesco, and they take my 5%, and he gets a cut of it from them. He also said he would be my personal financial advisor "included in that fee", and that "when my account is growing, I wont care about his fee" but when the account/market is depreciating "I might hate him".
It all seemed strange to me, yet when I contacted Charles Schwab, they told me my employer would not match unless the employers specifically does their investing with Schwab. They also said they would not work with me until my account has a minimum of 5,000 (which I dont have yet - I havent started my retirement account yet)
Is 5% of contributions per year a crazy high fee? I read online 1-2% is more apt, but online said 1-2% of the ACCOUNT BALANCE, whereas I believe this guy wants 5% of contributions. It still seems like a high fee to me? I obviously really want the matching, so is it worth going through this guy and Invesco (never heard of them)? I just felt like I could maybe do it myself or using a algorithm manager instead of in person, if it makes more financial sense. But I am a noob investor and need help. Thank you in advance!
Submitted March 12, 2018 at 10:27PM by Ghostwriter574 http://ift.tt/2p8iTUI
