5 Ways An Advisor Can Change Your Retirement

I only know that because I watch YouTube videos and I don't always go to the end . And I will say if you're looking for an advisor who's going to tell you to rebalance and you should buy this ETF instead of that mutual fund , and here's when you should collect Social Security don't hire us and maybe don't hire any advisor .

Now the reason the other advisors get mad at me and send me emails like hey , ari , would you stop saying that ? Because you're hurting my business . Some of my clients listen to your podcast and the videos and I have to say , nicely , I'm sorry , that's not my problem . My job is to add significant value in excess of the fee .

So I put out a video on YouTube saying am I crazy to pay $30,000 a year to an advisor ? And sometimes the answer is yes , you do not need to do that . Other times the answer is no , in the way that we have clients that pay us $70,000 a year and they're over the moon to do it .

So it's all about experience , timing , what you're looking for out of an advisor . What I'm going to do today and yes , this is biased , I'm an advisor but what I'm going to do today is actually give you five reasons to consider hiring an advisor in terms of how it can change your retirement . Not do you need them . Look , here's the reality .

The reality is most of you guys do not need an advisor . An advisor is not about need . An advisor is about quality of life and helping you optimize what you've worked so hard for . Now , what I'm going to tell you today this is not my traditional episode of hey . I'm taking this from five clients that I recently discussed this with .

I was on Reddit and I saw someone post this and I liked the way he described it , so I'm going to go through each of this person's points . Now , I don't know this person . I just read this and it resonated with me , so I'm going to share it with you guys . Now , whenever I'm doing any of this type of content , I want you guys to know .

You can , of course , see it on YouTube . If you want to actually see me explain it , I am going to share my screen with what I'm looking at . If you're like , no , I'm just listening in the car doing my workout , all good . I'm always going to continue and put this on the podcast app .

Some of you sent me an email going hey , I see you're doing more YouTube videos . Is there no more podcasts ? Nope , podcasts will always be here , so don't worry about that . So a few fun announcements before we get to the fun stuff today . Number one I'm going to be going live .

If you're listening to this right now , I probably would have gone live one , two or three times already . I'm going live on Wednesdays at 4 pm Pacific time . These are recorded . But the reason I want to go live ? I just believe in the most authentic content possible .

So I'm having guests on , I'm doing case studies , I'm answering your guys questions , so if that's the content you're looking for , you can go to YouTube . There's a tab where you can click live and you can go ahead and watch those . That's number one .

Number two I want to go over a recent comment , and the reason I want to go over this comment is because it's hilarious and as much as possible . You know this .

I will say I'm the meanest financial advisor not actually mean but I just don't want you to run the risk of running out and I also don't want you mad at me when you have 10 million bucks and you're 80 , going , hey , why didn't you tell me I could have spent more if I was in a fine spot to do so ?

So this is just a hilarious comment before we get to the real fun . So this is a comment that was left on a recent video by Daryl Q6954 . You can see it if you're watching on YouTube and I'm going to explain it if you're not . This says and this is I did not pay anyone to do this . Okay , before some of you guys going hey , did you coerce this ?

I did . I could not have thought of that if I tried . So this person they have quite the profile photo . If you're looking at it right now , it's like a turtle of some sort and it says can you get James to flex his biceps when you hit 20,000 subs ? He is so modest with his strength .

I saw that and I immediately sent that to James because it was hilarious . So if you guys don't know James , james is my partner . James is the host of the Ready for Retirement podcast . He is the founder of Root . I joined him after , and the reason I joined Root was I went , hey , this guy is different .

There's something about this guy that really really just immediately makes you feel like there's trust and that he's going to do the right things financially , not just what's going to bring him the most value and revenue and so what I really care about is James as my partner , because he's the best person you'll ever meet , if any of you guys have met him .

But the important thing to know here is this was a hilarious comment I'm at about like 19,000 subscribers on YouTube and once I hit 20 , I asked James . I said , james , I need you to do this . So pretty funny .

Now the reason I'm doing this today and , once again , I mentioned it before , but my parents were burned by four financial advisors , so I will be the first person to say , please do not hire an advisor , and I'll be the next person to say here's what it makes sense to hire an advisor .

So this is someone that there's a few things I disagree with , by the way , on what I'm going to share today , but there's a few things that I really like . So I'm just going to read each to you , then I'm going to go through them in more detail . So this is someone that went on Reddit and the reason I went to Reddit is because someone sent me a note .

They said hey , ari , you and James are being posted about often in these retirement communities on Reddit . So just FYI . And I was like , okay , what are they talking about ? So I went and looked around . People were just posting our videos about Social Security and stuff like that .

So this person brought it down into five points , saying what do I get for the money I spend ? Now he mentioned this person . He mentioned he was spending . I think his portfolio was like 6.5 million . So I don't know what he his fee is , but I'm just going to assume it's 1% , so that'd be 65,000 a year .

So here's someone with six and a half million dollars that is choosing to spend 65,000 a year . That's a significant fee . I'm the first person to tell someone hey , if I could save you the cost , don't work with an advisor . And here's when it makes a ton of sense to do it .

So the five points I'm going to walk through right now and then I'm going to give you my insight on them . So number one he says I get a coach we talk about monthly , mostly about how I'm doing and what my near-term financial needs might be . This keeps me grounded . I would never buy anything major without discussing it with him . This is healthy tension .

So let's go back to the need point . Does he need that ? No , he doesn't need that . But my parents made one really poor financial decision . Now they're smart people but finances are not their thing , and so they purchased a hefty long-term care policy . It was within an annuity . It was really tricky . There was a big sales commission .

If they didn't do that and instead just kept investing in the S&P 500 , they'd have about $350,000 more than they have right now and their policy just isn't great . So because of that , sometimes it's worth talking to an advisor to save you on one big mistake . Now , not saying all of you guys need that .

The reason I have my early retirement Academy is because some of you go look , I don't need to have an advisor on an ongoing basis , I don't want to talk to them , I don't want them to manage my money , I just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything , and so you can go in there and for a few hundred bucks get everything that you need .

From just a software perspective , there's no one-on-one guidance . So , number one this guy's paying an advisor I assume 65,000 a year because of the coach . Number two , he says he selects the wealth management company we use and sets our investment strategy . This comprehensive , this comprehends our retirement income needs .

All of our investments are parked in a Schwab account , so I have complete visibility and control . Should I desire to do something , we do the same thing . Everything's at Schwab . Schwab is the main custodian we use . Think about Schwab like your house . Schwab is locked . An advisor is an interior designer that is not moving things in and out of Schwab .

They are saying do we need a window ? Should we buy a couch ? So when this person says he selects the wealth management company we use , I imagine he's simply saying , hey , is that Fidelity or Vanguard ? So you can have your money at Charles Schwab and invest in whatever you want . That's what we do .

I don't want to work for Charles Schwab because Schwab would then pay me more money to incentivize me to use one product over another . So I'd go talk to you and say , look , I'm a nice guy . You just got to believe me and buy this product and you'd go . Well , you sound like a nice guy , so sure I'll do it .

But what you don't know is it is paying me a commission and a kickback . You don't see that's putting me in some leaderboard in some conference room somewhere , and that's just the reality of the world . So because of that , we are an independent advisor . I don't know if this person is , but that's number two .

Number three this person has made sure our estate is in order , based on our wishes . He's pointed us to the necessary experts . So we have the needed trust , power of attorney and wills . Our oldest daughter will be our executor and she's fully up to speed with everything and our kids know exactly what to expect after we're gone . Good luck quantifying that .

I like that one a lot Estate planning . To me this didn't go deep enough . This was just saying do we have a trust ? Do we have a will ? Do kids know where to go to log in for that stuff ? That stuff's important and in the same way , people hire a personal trainer to keep them accountable .

If this person never had an advisor , maybe they never would have got to the estate planning stuff . So sometimes you just need someone to help get you over the line . So I like this , but I'm not seeing him make comments regarding hey , he's telling me how much money I can give to my children .

If this person has six and a half million dollars , he should be doing some significant giving while he's alive to minimize his tax burden . So because of this , good but not deep enough . Number four this person says cognitive decline is in inevitable inevitability . Preparing for that eventually needs to be done well before it actually happens .

At some point , the complexities of our lives needs to be on autopilot . All of that is already in place . I don't know if this person has a partner or a spouse , but that's a big reason . People come to us where they really like doing this , but if something were to happen , they want Like this point here .

And then number five this is the biggest one he says peace of mind . It's hard to put a price on this . We don't worry about watching the markets and they don't impact our lifestyle . I'll often go months without looking at the status of our portfolio , because I'm comfortable with both the people and the strategy .

At the same time , I have an app on my phone that allows me full access and control , should I want it . So these are five quick points To me . If I read this , I wouldn't hire an advisor . I'm just being honest , these are good , I get this , but I just I'm a natural skeptic . It's just who I am . So I'd read this and go okay , got it .

Yep Coaching , I see how he sleeps better at night , get the estate in order . But I know me and I would go , I'll get my estate in order . And yeah , cognitive decline yeah , it's inevitable . But like , I've got 20 , 30 years , so like , why would I pay someone ? Now ?

Peace of mind , yeah , I want to make sure everything's okay , but right now I don't have children , so I'm not worrying about that . So that's just me right now , just giving you my honest thoughts . To me , someone hires an advisor because they go . I'm not going to have to do this anymore . That's the number one reason , in my opinion , people hire us Now .

That's not the real answer . The real answer is people hire us to go . I want you to save me on taxes . I don't want to get crushed by required distributions . I don't know . Should I add to my Roth ? Should I go pre-tax ? What should I do in terms of like ? Tell me , can I stop working truly , or am I going to run the risk of running out .

So there's a lot of big questions that people have and so people come generally going look , it's the tax , it's the withdrawal , it's the estate , it's the healthcare . That's why I'm reaching out . And then a year goes by and I go hey , why are you guys still working with us ?

And they go well , I didn't know what I didn't know , and there's a next level to this . So the point here is I do believe you all need something . I'm not saying you need to work with us on an ongoing basis . I actually recommend not .

Oftentimes , where someone comes on and they go , yeah , I'm ready to work with you guys , I go I don't think you should . They're like why not ? I go . Well , I can just tell you're going to be more stressed paying us our fee .

If you're paying us $2,000 a month even if we're making you $5,000 , I can tell you're just a naturally frugal person and you're not going to want to pay it or it's going to stress you out even more . So I will tell that to people . Other times I'll say look , you have the pieces to make it where we can optimize .

So the big reason that I have my academy once again is because if you came to me any of you let's assume you're 53 , you have a million dollars in a 401k . Some advisors would go , yeah , we'll work with you , but I don't think it's right to say that because they can't actually manage your money . It's all in a 401k .

They give you a few investment options , but they can't actually manage your money . So it only makes sense to really work with us when we're actually able to begin doing the work we talk about . So the Roth conversions , the taxing and harvesting , the healthcare optimization , the estate planning , the giving , all of the tax strategy that stuff is super helpful .

We add a lot of value to clients or we're saving them two $300,000 a year , but it's only when we can actually do work for them . So don't work with an advisor just because you think your neighbor has one and you should have one . Work with an advisor when you go oh no , I believe this is going to add value to my life .

So that's where I want to go over just a few real quick points on five ways advisors can change your retirement , sometimes for the better , sometimes for the worse . I've seen both sides . I've seen people hire an advisor and realize , hey , they don't need that .

I've had people hire an advisor and then go oh my gosh , I just could never imagine my life without this person . So the biggest thing to know about Roots and what we're doing is we don't have a hiring policy Now . People go well , you do , because you know people work for you . I go well , we do .

It's just not the traditional one you think of , where I wait for advisors to reach out to my partner , james and I , and go look , I watch your guys' videos , I watch the podcast . I want to work for you guys .

But the problem is I work at Schwab right now , or Fidelity right now , or Merrill right now , and they make me work with you know 800 , not 800 , but you know 300 people . I'm working until 8pm .

I tell them to go have work life balance , but I don't and all of a sudden like so that advisor is going to quit , whether it's the advisor just told you or just your advisor right now . If their company doesn't give them a healthy place to leave , they're going to leave .

And then you're going to be playing interviewer in retirement , where now you're constantly interviewing when you're passed to the next person At the same time . And this is the big issue . I see , let's assume you like your advisor , you get passed to the next person . Great , the biggest thing I'll see is people go . Well , my advisor tells me to talk to my CPA .

My CPA says talk to my advisor . So I feel like I'm constantly playing middleman . Now the reality is your advisor should be doing all of that work . They should be helping coordinate all the health insurance , all of the withdrawal , all of the tax . They should be doing all of that .

So if they're not doing that and you're going , look , I just don't know if I'm getting enough value or is it worth it . That's where you start to consider okay , does it make sense to change advisors ? Should I hire an advisor so I don't have to be essentially a coordinator in retirement , which is the joke ?

I'll tell people when they come and say I'm retired , I'm like I don't think you are . They go . Well , you're wrong because I am .

I go , I believe you're retired , but I believe you have a new job where you're a coordinator and you're trying to coordinate everything between a planner and a CPA and an attorney , and now all of a sudden it's just a new job in retirement . So , because of that summary , you don't need an advisor . You're at it .

You're hiring an advisor because it's going to financially add a lot more value and your life's going to be a lot better . So I saw these points on Reddit , wanted to address it on a podcast . I'm going to be back to my traditional episodes next week of hey , do a conversion , fill up Roth , do pre-tax . What about brokerage ?

How do you think through more of the technical side ? But I want to do a quick break just to discuss when does it make sense to hire an advisor and how could you think about it regarding your plan , if you go , yeah , this is all helpful , I get it . It's kind of nice hearing how you think through this , but I just don't feel I need one Great .

That's why the Academy exists A few hundred bucks , go in there , get the guidance you want and hopefully that's helpful for you guys . So you can see everything I just discussed inretirementpodcastcom and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode . Thank you all for listening .

Please do rate it , review it and share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information . If there's anyone out there that you know , I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week .