One issue is that we have funds at Vanguard, TSP, 401K with Fidelity, Ibonds at Treasury Direct, and a cash balance pension fund with my employer. I still do a little bit of part-time work.nedsaid wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:35 pm
I would look into Vanguard Personal Advisory Service. Many threads here regarding VPAS, it isn't perfect and it has its flaws, but it might be the best solution for someone like you.
What you don't want is to have your widow rush to Edward Jones or Ameriprise after your passing on. They are a pretty expensive way to go for financial planning and asset management. Fidelity and Schwab have good, lower cost options but she might get subtle sales pressure to move on to more expensive advisory services. So if you want a lower cost service, VPAS, Fidelity Go, and Schwab's Intelligent Portfolios plus access to Certified Financial Planners are three of the better options that I am aware of.
T Rowe Price offers financial planning and portfolio management for about 1% a year of net assets. American Century offers this for 0.90% but their planning services might not be as comprehensive as one would like. A local Financial Advisor would be probably 1.1% or assets or more unless you have a sizeable portfolio, I would expect a range of probably 1.2% to 1.8% of assets per year, all inclusive. The more expensive services could have all-in costs of 2% or more of assets each year.
For a widow, she would probably want somebody local that she could talk to face to face. But VPAS, Schwab, and Fidelity are viable if she can do phone and/or zoom conferences. There might be a Schwab or Fidelity office close enough for her. The local and independent Financial Advisors will be more expensive, and that is the problem.
So nothing is perfect, there are drawbacks to everything. Despite what people say here, just telling your widow to read your Investment Policy Statement after your passing just isn't going to do it. If your spouse is not interested in learning how to do these things, it is probably best to get things set up while you are still living. The least I would do here is to seriously look into VPAS.
Edit: I restated some things here that I made earlier in the thread. I didn't realize this was an older thread that I had already weighed in on.
Would a Vanguard PAS manage all that or would I have to move it all to Vanguard?
Maybe I should move it anyway. But there are costs in doing that.