Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: edhackett
I'm likely to split it between a fund that is all high dividend paying stock and one that is a mix of roughly 38% US and foreign stock, 30% bonds, and the rest in cash investments, real estate, and commodities. Both appear to be "moderate" risk. The advisor may have better ideas.
Do your homework and don't make a decision there on the spot (I realize that your meeting is already over). Keep and eye on your investment costs. Commissions, expense ratios, etc. These all combine to reduce your growth over time.
Yes, doing the homework is important. I was doing that and was not ready to commit and missed that last dip. Both funds that I bought from Charles Schwab were no commission, 0.9% management fee, no internal fees on the Thomas Partners, and extremely low internal fees on the ETF based portfolio, which should stay below 1% total. I have no interest in doing my own trading so Schwab's higher than some trading fees weren't an issue. The management fees on their managed portfolios are among the lowest. I found you could get the same funds or similar elsewhere and be paying 2-3% total. I was originally thinking of going with another well known investment firm that has offices here in town. Five of them, in a town of 6600 people. I realized that somebody had to pay for all of those offices, and that somebody would be me.
I had figured the Thomas Partners was a moderate risk fund. The advisor told me that it was actually considered high risk as it was all stock and contained only large cap US companies. He was OK with that for my situation and thought it was an excellent addition to a portfolio, but didn't want me to put all my funds into it. I came away feeling that I had been given good advise, and that we came up with an initial plan that both he and I were comfortable with.
The point of the above rambling is to point out to Turk and others in the same situation is that with some homework you can make an informed decision on what to do. I came to the conclusion that there is no one right answer, just better and worse. Use the resources available to choose a better answer for your situation.
Ed
P.S. Pablo is right about the bonds. I was advised to keep them at a low percentage of my overall plan right now.