Quote:
Originally Posted by 3798j
^ No argument there. Long time Jack Bogle fan...totally pleased self directing myself among the Vanguard family of mutual funds...indexed and managed.
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Exactly. It's so freaking easy to manage it yourself. I made the mistake years ago of having a financial adviser (Morgan Stanley) provide investment direction and management. He was the same adviser that manages my parents accounts. I was in all sorts of high fee funds because I didn't know better. The way they buried their management fees was impressive too after I figured out where they were. Over the course of 15 years, I estimate I lost out on about $150-200K in growth by staying in those high fee funds (many of which did not even match the performance of the S&P 500) and the cost of having MS manage my portfolio.
I left MS in 2014 and moved everything Vanguard. In 5 years, my portfolio grew in value by 30% without me adding a dime to it, only reinvestment of dividends and such. That even includes me taking money out to buy my wife her current car ($38K), putting a healthy down payment on my M235 ($15K), and building a $12K deck. Granted I've got other things than S&P 500 index funds and short-term bonds now, but it's still quite heavy towards those two funds.