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RICP, CFP Financial Plan

#11
Well, I can only give you an example from my past. About 13 years into my 32 yr career with the same employer, we converted from hourly to salaried.
That entailed a new "massively better" benefits and retirement plan. Everyone in my position went all in on that plan, I spent some $ on a Financial Planner.
His results confirmed my suspicion that switching mid stream from defined benefit to defined contribution was not cost effective. None of my peer group could retire after 30 years while I easily walked out the door. Sometimes it pays to pay a professional to do their job. I've never tried surgery on myself either. I think the true professionals in any field can do better than those who are self taught. I know that was true of me when I was practicing full time.
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#12
Time to update this thread that I started a couple months ago. My wife and I have completed the 2 preliminary meetings with the planner. The first meeting was just over an hour and was primarily focused on information gathering. It included many of the same features included in the Fidelity planning software I've used here. Goals, risk acceptance, resources, etc. The second meeting took place yesterday and was a review of those results.

These meetings are baseline and are not billed although I did offer to pay a fee for service. It turned out great. The FP Software that is used is far more complex and sophisticated that what we use here. I got an Rsquared, alpha and beta measurement and a Mean return over time along with a return range based on my individual stocks and ETF's. They modeled the worst 10 years against our portfolio starting when my wife retires to test a worst case scenario. BTW, for those who don't realize, the worst 10 years since 1914 were 1999 through 2009, we weathered one hexx of a storm.

There were no negative results and several salient points of reinforcement. I have sucked all the risk out of my high return, growth portfolio by retaining a 40% cash position, now is not the time to move into bonds.

This has resulted in a low risk, high return portfolio compared to the benchmark S&P 500, better than that benchmark with lower risk. He concluded that I don't need a Financial Planner but offered a fee for service to fine tune and optimize our outcomes. The other piece is that they can become a resource for my wife if I precede her in leaving. She has zero experience or interest in being an investor/manager at this level while it's a great pastime for me. We have a few weeks to discuss and decide how much or how little participation to choose. There are no other products like insurance or annuities that they sell, just the FP services. We're both impressed and pleased at how this has confirmed our plans and goals. I highly recommend this exercise/review for folks like us who have a DIYer and a silent partner.
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#13
What a slacker.

I've had 2 more seminar/interviews in the last 3 weeks. This isn't an urgent project so I'm taking my time, choosing my line. (thanks Joe) The first of the two meetings was a sponsored dinner. You can guess how that went, great meal, good table company, Yuuuge presentation. They answered questions till the questions got specific.

Didn't want to talk about certifications or which software package they used. Blowhards who claimed success but were short on specifics and acknowledged they are expensive. Reminded me of the POTUS so I did not go further with them.
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