Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

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Topic Author
caro in nyc
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:02 am

Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by caro in nyc »

Hi,

I am woefully under-educated when it comes to financial matters, but trying to self-educate and get myself on the right track.

My husband and I also opened an Ameriprise account in 2020, which I think was a bad move. Our FA has given us a lot of advice outside of Ameriprise about how to handle our retirement accounts (not with Ameriprise) and plan for some financial decisions in our lives in regards to a mortgage, school tuition etc. and I think she is trustworthy, but I am not sold on the Ameriprise model and would like to exit it to Vanguard. Hoping we are doing this early enough not to really have made an irreversible blunder!

Right now we have the following NOT at Ameriprise:
401k and TIAA-CREF

At Ameriprise:
We each have a Riversource Life Insurance policy of 1.5M, which we've each paid about 5k into
We each have a Roth IRA, which we have each put 12k into (value of each is about 10k right now)
An investment account we've put 85k into which is holding that value, but down significantly from a high earlier this year

The investment account is a mix of mutual funds and UITs
BCOSX
FRIAX
HFCIX
OAKIX
PONPX
PRBLX

I'd like to roll everything over to Vanguard without too much of a loss. What's the best way to do this? And do you suggest working with one of their personal advisor service to get set up? I'd be interested in a fairly standard 80/20 split and we are coming into some money in the next few months we'd like to invest, so want to get ahead of it instead fo putting it into Ameriprise at all.

From what I can tell the Ameriprise funds we're in are not proprietary, but again I am not trusting my own assessment here.

Any advice and first steps to take much appreciated! I'm nervous to manage my own accounts at Vanguard, but think we're better off there so advice on how to do that also welcome!

Thank you in advance

PS also curious about buying I-Bonds and whether that seems look a good idea right now! We have 10k we could invest into them.
exodusNH
Posts: 10344
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2021 7:21 pm

Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by exodusNH »

caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:16 am Hi,

I am woefully under-educated when it comes to financial matters, but trying to self-educate and get myself on the right track.

My husband and I also opened an Ameriprise account in 2020, which I think was a bad move. Our FA has given us a lot of advice outside of Ameriprise about how to handle our retirement accounts (not with Ameriprise) and plan for some financial decisions in our lives in regards to a mortgage, school tuition etc. and I think she is trustworthy, but I am not sold on the Ameriprise model and would like to exit it to Vanguard. Hoping we are doing this early enough not to really have made an irreversible blunder!

Right now we have the following NOT at Ameriprise:
401k and TIAA-CREF

At Ameriprise:
We each have a Riversource Life Insurance policy of 1.5M, which we've each paid about 5k into
We each have a Roth IRA, which we have each put 12k into (value of each is about 10k right now)
An investment account we've put 85k into which is holding that value, but down significantly from a high earlier this year

The investment account is a mix of mutual funds and UITs
BCOSX
FRIAX
HFCIX
OAKIX
PONPX
PRBLX

I'd like to roll everything over to Vanguard without too much of a loss. What's the best way to do this? And do you suggest working with one of their personal advisor service to get set up? I'd be interested in a fairly standard 80/20 split and we are coming into some money in the next few months we'd like to invest, so want to get ahead of it instead fo putting it into Ameriprise at all.

From what I can tell the Ameriprise funds we're in are not proprietary, but again I am not trusting my own assessment here.

Any advice and first steps to take much appreciated! I'm nervous to manage my own accounts at Vanguard, but think we're better off there so advice on how to do that also welcome!

Thank you in advance

PS also curious about buying I-Bonds and whether that seems look a good idea right now! We have 10k we could invest into them.
You can move over your Roth and taxable accounts without a problem. You go to Vanguard and start the process with an account transfer. Vanguard talks to Ameriprise and handles the migration. Once you get the funds over to Vanguard, you can figure out what to sell.

I wouldn't be too concerned about losing money as you'll be moving from the funds you have to similar, lower-cost funds at Vanguard.

I assume, where you say you've "put $5k" into the life insurance policy, that you have been sold into some sort of permanent life insurance policy. Unfortunately, you advisor did this because he got a fat commission check out of it. Unless you have very specific circumstances (child with a disability that will require care after you die) or own a substantial amount of illiquid property (a business larger than the estate tax exclusion and need the money to pay the estate taxes), you do not need it and would be better off investing the money in a taxable account instead.

You should ask for "in-force illustrations" and post the details here, but I can almost guarantee that everyone will tell you to lick your wounds (i.e. forget about the sunk costs) and cancel the policies.

As an example, I was sold permanent insurance when I was 30. The current value, after 18 years, is $70,000. Had I invested the money in the market at 80/20, I would have had over $250,000.

The insurance is separate from the investment accounts, though. You can start the transfers with the former while figuring out the latter. Do expect the advisor to reach out to you and try to scare or guilt you about this.

This podcast, https://youtu.be/EwMF_ndAKzk, is run by two Canadian portfolio advisors. They strongly advise investing in low-cost index funds. If you go to the 45 minute mark, they interview a fee-only advisor and discuss some of the tactics that are used to attempt to dissuade people from moving their funds to low-cost providers.
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retired@50
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by retired@50 »

caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:16 am The investment account is a mix of mutual funds and UITs
BCOSX - Baird Core Plus Bond Intermediate Term ER 0.55%
FRIAX - Franklin Income Adv - Blended fund - 30% value stocks and 70% low credit quality bonds etc. ER 0.47%
HFCIX - Hennessey Focus Institutional - mid cap growth fund ER 1.12%
OAKIX - Oakmark International - Foreign large value ER 1.05%
PONPX - PIMCO Income - multi-sector bond ER 0.72%
PRBLX - Parnassus Core Equity - Large growth ER 0.82%
Welcome to the forum. :happy

As you try to educate yourself you're probably going to feel as if you're drinking from a fire hose. :shock:

The amount of information you'll need to absorb to be truly confident and fully understand what you need to know may take a while, depending on how much time you devote to the process. As a newcomer, you might benefit from reading the short book (really a 16 page PDF) called "If You Can" by William Bernstein.
Link here: https://flip4u.org/docs/If%20You%20Can% ... nstein.pdf

You appear to be on the fence about using an adviser, so considering the Vanguard options is smart. You can use them for a year or two, while you come up to speed on your financial knowledge and then cease the service once you feel comfortable.

I've added some information about the funds your current adviser has put in your portfolio above. Notice the expense ratios are far higher than a typical Vanguard index fund. A low-expense ratio fund is typically less than 0.15% and often less than 0.05%. These tiny percentage numbers don't mean much at a glance, but when you look into the situation more deeply, you'll realize that the funds that are currently being used by the Ameriprise adviser are 10 to 20 times more expensive than what you can readily purchase as a retail client at Vanguard.

More details on expense ratios here: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Expense_ratios

Regards,
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -George Orwell
exodusNH
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by exodusNH »

retired@50 wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:42 am
caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:16 am The investment account is a mix of mutual funds and UITs
BCOSX - Baird Core Plus Bond Intermediate Term ER 0.55%
FRIAX - Franklin Income Adv - Blended fund - 30% value stocks and 70% low credit quality bonds etc. ER 0.47%
HFCIX - Hennessey Focus Institutional - mid cap growth fund ER 1.12%
OAKIX - Oakmark International - Foreign large value ER 1.05%
PONPX - PIMCO Income - multi-sector bond ER 0.72%
PRBLX - Parnassus Core Equity - Large growth ER 0.82%
Welcome to the forum. :happy

As you try to educate yourself you're probably going to feel as if you're drinking from a fire hose. :shock:

The amount of information you'll need to absorb to be truly confident and fully understand what you need to know may take a while, depending on how much time you devote to the process. As a newcomer, you might benefit from reading the short book (really a 16 page PDF) called "If You Can" by William Bernstein.
Link here: https://flip4u.org/docs/If%20You%20Can% ... nstein.pdf

You appear to be on the fence about using an adviser, so considering the Vanguard options is smart. You can use them for a year or two, while you come up to speed on your financial knowledge and then cease the service once you feel comfortable.

I've added some information about the funds your current adviser has put in your portfolio above. Notice the expense ratios are far higher than a typical Vanguard index fund. A low-expense ratio fund is typically less than 0.15% and often less than 0.05%. These tiny percentage numbers don't mean much at a glance, but when you look into the situation more deeply, you'll realize that the funds that are currently being used by the Ameriprise adviser are 10 to 20 times more expensive than what you can readily purchase as a retail client at Vanguard.

More details on expense ratios here: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Expense_ratios

Regards,
A useful reframing of the expenses is that a 1% ER on a fund with an expected return of 7% is actually a 14% fee.

People (including me!) see "1%" and don't realize that is a much bigger number than it appears.
Topic Author
caro in nyc
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:02 am

Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by caro in nyc »

Thanks so much for this breakdown on fees - this is exactly the kind of thing I didn't know about and why I want out.

Just grateful we haven't been in with them for a long time.

Sounds like the IRAs are easy to move. I can figure out the life insurance later.

How complicated is to move the money in these funds to Vanguard and put them in index funds? Will I lose quite a bit / have to pay taxes / be hit with fees on both ends?

Any insight appreciated. Trying to get all the info I can so I can tackle this ASAP.
exodusNH
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Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2021 7:21 pm

Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by exodusNH »

caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:30 pm Thanks so much for this breakdown on fees - this is exactly the kind of thing I didn't know about and why I want out.

Just grateful we haven't been in with them for a long time.

Sounds like the IRAs are easy to move. I can figure out the life insurance later.

How complicated is to move the money in these funds to Vanguard and put them in index funds? Will I lose quite a bit / have to pay taxes / be hit with fees on both ends?

Any insight appreciated. Trying to get all the info I can so I can tackle this ASAP.
No taxes on IRAs. Move them, sell the funds, buy what you want.

For taxable, you'll need to look at what your taxable gains are. They're still easy to move. The cost information will transfer over ~10 days later. Move them and turn off dividend reinvestment. Once you get the cost data, you can figure out what to sell. Anything bought after last summer is likely down or has very small gains. The older stuff probably rode the COVID craziness, but even if that's up 10%, you're looking at $8000 in gains, which would be ~$1000 in taxes. As long as you're not on some income cliff, I'd not worry about it.
123
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by 123 »

exodusNH wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:48 am A useful reframing of the expenses is that a 1% ER on a fund with an expected return of 7% is actually a 14% fee.

People (including me!) see "1%" and don't realize that is a much bigger number than it appears.
+1 An excellent observation that we need to emphasize more when talking about ER ratios and AUM fees.
The closest helping hand is at the end of your own arm.
HomeStretch
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by HomeStretch »

Welcome to the forum!

If you aren’t already a Vanguard customer, consider Fidelity or Schwab if there is a local office near you. There is a mega-thread for each of Fidelity and Schwab that you can search the forum for, if interested, with a lot of information about each brokerage.

Edit -
1) link to Fidelity thread: viewtopic.php?t=266538
2) link to Schwab thread:
viewtopic.php?t=355173

I found Fidelity easier to work with than Vanguard when transferring accounts as Fidelity’s local office was able to provide the Medallion Guarantees required for transfers of accounts. I also like Fidelity’s broader range of offerings that I can’t get at Vanguard - 2% cash back card, CMA with debit/ATM card, better app where mobile deposit works, etc.
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by pkcrafter »

Yes, Fidelity or Schwab. Schwab was providing a bonus for moving so you might check that out. The actual move is initiated by the company you are going with, but you must make sure all the funds you want to transfer are available at the new company or the move will be made but it won't be complete (some funds left behind).

You are using a financial advisor? What is she recommending and what it the cost?

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio


Paul
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by mkc »

caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:30 pm

Sounds like the IRAs are easy to move. I can figure out the life insurance later.
Don't delay too long on the life insurance. It sounds like these are throwing good money after bad universal/whole life policies and the sooner you exit them, the better.
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by retired@50 »

caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:30 pm How complicated is to move the money in these funds to Vanguard and put them in index funds? Will I lose quite a bit / have to pay taxes / be hit with fees on both ends?

Any insight appreciated. Trying to get all the info I can so I can tackle this ASAP.
So, when you're selling an existing fund there are several terms and concepts to be aware of. This wiki page that discusses paying a tax cost to switch funds might help you learn about, and think about, the relevant factors to consider.

Paying a tax cost to switch: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Paying_ ... itch_funds

See also, Cost basis: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Cost_basis_methods

Regards,
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -George Orwell
GuyInFL
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by GuyInFL »

exodusNH wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:04 pm
caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:30 pm Thanks so much for this breakdown on fees - this is exactly the kind of thing I didn't know about and why I want out.

Just grateful we haven't been in with them for a long time.

Sounds like the IRAs are easy to move. I can figure out the life insurance later.

How complicated is to move the money in these funds to Vanguard and put them in index funds? Will I lose quite a bit / have to pay taxes / be hit with fees on both ends?

Any insight appreciated. Trying to get all the info I can so I can tackle this ASAP.
No taxes on IRAs. Move them, sell the funds, buy what you want.

For taxable, you'll need to look at what your taxable gains are. They're still easy to move. The cost information will transfer over ~10 days later. Move them and turn off dividend reinvestment. Once you get the cost data, you can figure out what to sell. Anything bought after last summer is likely down or has very small gains. The older stuff probably rode the COVID craziness, but even if that's up 10%, you're looking at $8000 in gains, which would be ~$1000 in taxes. As long as you're not on some income cliff, I'd not worry about it.
Make sure you capture your cost basis on the taxable account before transferring.
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by Stinky »

Welcome to the Forum! Had that you posted your question.

What type of life insurance do you have from Riversource?

Given the mix of products that Ricersource sells, it’s likely that you have some form of permanent life insurance policy. Probably an indexed universal life policy. This would be the kind of policy that has a large annual premium, and will build cash value over a long period of time. It’s the type of insurance that is NOT recommended by most Bogleheads for 99+% of life insurance buyers.

The vast majority of folks are best served by buying level premium term life insurance. You can get quotes from a large number of companies, and get in touch with a local broker, by visiting term4sale.com. If I’m right that you currently have permanent life insurance, you’ll be amazed at how much less expensive the term life is.

You haven’t given any information as to your family and children situation, income, expenses etc. Your current $1.5 million for each of you might be too high, too low, or just right. That’s a separate discussion.

Once again, presuming that your current policies are indexed universal life, I don’t believe that it’s in your long term best interest to keep the policies. They’re just two years old, and it will be many years (and many $thousands of premiums more) until they even break even.

I’d advise you to determine the proper amount of life insurance, determine the appropriate term for the policy (maybe 20 or 30 years), and apply for and get new term life insurance in place. Then I’d cancel the old policies, and collect whatever (trivial) surrender value there might be. I’d direct the premium savings that you have into either increasing your tax deferred savings or your taxable account.

Best to you. Post back with questions.
Retired life insurance company financial executive who sincerely believes that ”It’s a GREAT day to be alive!”
Topic Author
caro in nyc
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Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:02 am

Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by caro in nyc »

Hi all thanks so much for the very helpful advice.

I am going to try and fill in some more info and ask a few more questions!

Part of this reason we've worked with the FA we have now is that she gives us a lot of advice outside of Ameriprise products and has helped us with 401ks, 529 plans, IBonds, budgeting etc. I have not spoken to her yet about moving away from working with her but in our last convo she recommended we put 20k in IBonds and do the 12k Roth conversions for 2022. In some ways I wish we could keep her and just work with her outside of Ameriprise, but of course we can't.

In terms of the life insurance it's term insurance, not permanent. We each pay about $130 a month towards the premium. We have two young children, elementary and baby, and one with special needs so the life insurance is important to us.

For many years we didn't make a lot of money and never thought about investing or what to do with any savings we have. Now at 40, it feels like we're playing major catch-up but have some money to make the most of.

HHI is 350k in a high COL living area NYC
We do not own, but have very low rent $1500 a month
Two kids who we have high childcare/school expenses for about 60k a year
We try to keep other expenses low (no cable, old car, watch what we spend on groceries etc.) and have no debt or loans.
We max out 401ks (each have about 160k in our accounts) and put 10k into each child's 529 yearly.

Right now we have 170k in cash savings that we're looking to invest and make some smart decisions about.

We saved it because our child with special needs was potentially going to a very expensive school and they recommended having two years tuition in the bank, but we were awarded funding (phew!) and now don't have to sit on it anymore. So it feels like the right moment to buy into the market (or consider buying a small second home if the market continues to turn down).

Any thoughts on what to do with the cash much appreciated! I feel safe putting 100k into the market or other investments.

I am trying to understand the "cost basis" thank you for the helpful links. These do make my head swim, but I'm learning :happy
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nedsaid
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by nedsaid »

caro in nyc wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:16 am Hi,

I am woefully under-educated when it comes to financial matters, but trying to self-educate and get myself on the right track.

Nedsaid: As one poster said, you probably feel that learning from the forum is like drinking from a firehose. The good news is that you don't have to learn everything all at once. I think the idea of working with Vanguard's Personal Advisor service is a good one, a good intermediate step until you know enough to manage your portfolio on your own. If you chose to stick with Vanguard's Advisory service for the long haul, that is a good choice too. Not everyone wants to be do-it-yourself.

My husband and I also opened an Ameriprise account in 2020, which I think was a bad move. Our FA has given us a lot of advice outside of Ameriprise about how to handle our retirement accounts (not with Ameriprise) and plan for some financial decisions in our lives in regards to a mortgage, school tuition etc. and I think she is trustworthy, but I am not sold on the Ameriprise model and would like to exit it to Vanguard. Hoping we are doing this early enough not to really have made an irreversible blunder!

Nedsaid: Don't be too hard on yourself. You took a good step by seeking help, though Ameriprise is not optimal by Boglehead standards. They actually do a good job of financial planning and they will get you into a diversified portfolio but the ongoing costs are high and they want to get you into expensive Annuity/Insurance products. Another thing, unless they have changed this, they have a preferred list of mutual fund providers that pays Ameriprise for shelf space, so the Advisor will have a bias to recommending mutual fund families that pay Ameriprise a fee. They do disclose this. So I think you got some good things out of this arrangement but you can do better. Just look at it as a learning experience.


Right now we have the following NOT at Ameriprise:
401k and TIAA-CREF

At Ameriprise:
We each have a Riversource Life Insurance policy of 1.5M, which we've each paid about 5k into
We each have a Roth IRA, which we have each put 12k into (value of each is about 10k right now)
An investment account we've put 85k into which is holding that value, but down significantly from a high earlier this year

The investment account is a mix of mutual funds and UITs
BCOSX
FRIAX
HFCIX
OAKIX
PONPX
PRBLX

I'd like to roll everything over to Vanguard without too much of a loss. What's the best way to do this? And do you suggest working with one of their personal advisor service to get set up? I'd be interested in a fairly standard 80/20 split and we are coming into some money in the next few months we'd like to invest, so want to get ahead of it instead of putting it into Ameriprise at all.

From what I can tell the Ameriprise funds we're in are not proprietary, but again I am not trusting my own assessment here.

Any advice and first steps to take much appreciated! I'm nervous to manage my own accounts at Vanguard, but think we're better off there so advice on how to do that also welcome!

Nedsaid: Using Vanguard's Advisory service is a good intermediate step, they certainly will be a lot cheaper than Ameriprise and the advice will be better. You can always drop the service at whatever point you want to do this yourself. If you choose Vanguard Personal Advisor service, stay with them at least a year, it would be a terrific learning experience.

Thank you in advance

PS also curious about buying I-Bonds and whether that seems look a good idea right now! We have 10k we could invest into them.
A fool and his money are good for business.
exodusNH
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by exodusNH »

caro in nyc wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 9:40 am Hi all thanks so much for the very helpful advice.

I am going to try and fill in some more info and ask a few more questions!

Part of this reason we've worked with the FA we have now is that she gives us a lot of advice outside of Ameriprise products and has helped us with 401ks, 529 plans, IBonds, budgeting etc. I have not spoken to her yet about moving away from working with her but in our last convo she recommended we put 20k in IBonds and do the 12k Roth conversions for 2022. In some ways I wish we could keep her and just work with her outside of Ameriprise, but of course we can't.

In terms of the life insurance it's term insurance, not permanent. We each pay about $130 a month towards the premium. We have two young children, elementary and baby, and one with special needs so the life insurance is important to us.

For many years we didn't make a lot of money and never thought about investing or what to do with any savings we have. Now at 40, it feels like we're playing major catch-up but have some money to make the most of.

HHI is 350k in a high COL living area NYC
We do not own, but have very low rent $1500 a month
Two kids who we have high childcare/school expenses for about 60k a year
We try to keep other expenses low (no cable, old car, watch what we spend on groceries etc.) and have no debt or loans.
We max out 401ks (each have about 160k in our accounts) and put 10k into each child's 529 yearly.

Right now we have 170k in cash savings that we're looking to invest and make some smart decisions about.

We saved it because our child with special needs was potentially going to a very expensive school and they recommended having two years tuition in the bank, but we were awarded funding (phew!) and now don't have to sit on it anymore. So it feels like the right moment to buy into the market (or consider buying a small second home if the market continues to turn down).

Any thoughts on what to do with the cash much appreciated! I feel safe putting 100k into the market or other investments.

I am trying to understand the "cost basis" thank you for the helpful links. These do make my head swim, but I'm learning :happy
You might still want to shop the term insurance around. Term insurance is a commodity. As Stinky mentioned, term4sale.com will give you a bunch of different rates. Many times, the term insurance companies like Ameriprise sell aren't competitive. (E.g. Northwestern Mutual's term insurance is very expensive.)

Regarding the cash, if you're not averse to opening up a Treasury Direct account, you could buy $20k of I Bonds right now and then you and your husband can each purchase another $10k each to gift each other in 2023. That's a good, safe place to park $40k as long as you don't need the money for 12 months.
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Stinky
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Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by Stinky »

caro in nyc wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 9:40 am Hi all thanks so much for the very helpful advice.

I am going to try and fill in some more info and ask a few more questions!

Part of this reason we've worked with the FA we have now is that she gives us a lot of advice outside of Ameriprise products and has helped us with 401ks, 529 plans, IBonds, budgeting etc. I have not spoken to her yet about moving away from working with her but in our last convo she recommended we put 20k in IBonds and do the 12k Roth conversions for 2022. In some ways I wish we could keep her and just work with her outside of Ameriprise, but of course we can't.

In terms of the life insurance it's term insurance, not permanent. We each pay about $130 a month towards the premium. We have two young children, elementary and baby, and one with special needs so the life insurance is important to us.

For many years we didn't make a lot of money and never thought about investing or what to do with any savings we have. Now at 40, it feels like we're playing major catch-up but have some money to make the most of.

HHI is 350k in a high COL living area NYC
We do not own, but have very low rent $1500 a month
Two kids who we have high childcare/school expenses for about 60k a year
We try to keep other expenses low (no cable, old car, watch what we spend on groceries etc.) and have no debt or loans.
We max out 401ks (each have about 160k in our accounts) and put 10k into each child's 529 yearly.

Right now we have 170k in cash savings that we're looking to invest and make some smart decisions about.

We saved it because our child with special needs was potentially going to a very expensive school and they recommended having two years tuition in the bank, but we were awarded funding (phew!) and now don't have to sit on it anymore. So it feels like the right moment to buy into the market (or consider buying a small second home if the market continues to turn down).

Any thoughts on what to do with the cash much appreciated! I feel safe putting 100k into the market or other investments.

I am trying to understand the "cost basis" thank you for the helpful links. These do make my head swim, but I'm learning :happy
On your term life insurance -

If you have 10 minutes of free time, you might just go to term4sale.com to see if you could beat your current rates.

On the one hand, Ameriprise isn’t known as a leading writer of term life insurance. On the other hand, you’re two years older now than when you bought the policies, so your rates would be higher because of your age. Also, you’re in New York State, snd insurance is more expensive (and selection of companies is more limited) than in the other 49 states.

There’s a good chance that you’re getting a reasonably good deal on your life insurance. But, with a small expenditure of time, you can get more facts.

Post back with questions.
Retired life insurance company financial executive who sincerely believes that ”It’s a GREAT day to be alive!”
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nedsaid
Posts: 19275
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 11:33 am

Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by nedsaid »

I am a big fan of I Bonds at Treasury Direct. There are several threads out there regarding I Bonds and Mel Lindauer has written articles for Forbes Magazine regarding I Bonds. Mel also has written excellent articles on Annuities. So some searching and you will get a good education on both from Mel.
A fool and his money are good for business.
HomeStretch
Posts: 11415
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2018 2:06 pm

Re: Ameriprise to Vanguard - need advice

Post by HomeStretch »

Is your current term life a level-premium policy (i.e., your annual premium remains the same for the life of the policy) or do the premiums escalate annually/when you move into an older age band?

It’s a good idea to get quotes to see if your/spouse’s premiums are competitive. But if your current policies are not level-premium for the term, definitely get quotes for 20-year and 30-year level-premium policies and consider changing to such new policies. The annual premiums on non-level-premium term life policies can increase significantly as you age. With a special needs child, likely you are going to have life insurance coverage for a long period of time.
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